. 


J 


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-‘‘ylar.flubi  Aurvr&W 


ruA-jid 


THE 


Origin  and  Destiny  of  Man, 


BY 


H.  W.  THOMAS,  D.  D. 


PHONOGRAPHIC  REPORTS  OF  A  SERIES  OF  SUNDAY 

EVENING  SERMONS. 


AURORA,  ILL.  : 

Pieroe  Burton  &  Co. 


1  877. 


Copyright,  1877, 

By  PIEECE  BUETON  &  CO, 


* 


V 


25a ,  m 

T2>(^<r 


PREFACE. 


The  following  discourses  were  delivered  in  the  ordinary  course  of 
pastoral  labors,  and  without  the  least  thought  that  they  should  ever 
reach  the  public  in  print.  Indeed,  the  first  one  was  published 
before  I  knew  that  it  had  been  reported.  Their  appearance  in  book 
form  now  is  due  to  the  request  of  those  who  heard  them  —  a  request 
that  I  could  not  well  deny,  and  yet,  knowing  how  imperfect  the  work 
must  be,  felt  reluctant  to  grant.  I  could  not  revise  them,  beyond 
some  mere  verbal  corrections,  or  the  addition  of  an  occasional  sen¬ 
tence,  without  writing  them  entire,  and  then  they  would  have  ceased 
to  be  what  they  now  honestly  are,  verbatim  reports  ;  and  so  I  let 
them  go  to  the  world,  word  for  word,  as  caught  by  the  faithful 
stenographer.  Anything  like  an  exhaustive  discussion  of  so  large  & 
subject  was  not  possible  in  a  few  brief  talks  ;  nor  was  more  attempted 
than  to  suggest  outlines  of  thought,  and  in  some  measure  to  direct 
the  thinking  of  those  who  came  to  hear. 

As  to  the  views  here  expressed,  I  can  only  say  that  they  are  such  as 
have  taken  shape  in  my  own  mind  as  seeming  to  be  most  reasonable, 
and  possibly  nearest  the  truth.  On  many  points  I  felt  —  and,  feeling 
it,  expressed  —  a  sense  of  uncertainty.  The  dogmatists  who  know,  or 
rather  think  they  know,  everything,  will  probably  not  find  satisfaction 
in  reading  these  pages.  But  those  who,  with  myself,  deeply  conscious 
of  the  mystery  of  life,  are  glad  to  see  at  all,  even  though  it  be 
“  through  a  glass  darkly,”  may,  I  trust,  find  some  thought  or  word  to 
help  them  by  the  way. 


IT 


Preface. 


Writing  these  words  now,  recalls  tearful  memories  of  a  little  more 
than  a  year  ago.  When  the  discourse  on  “Death”  was  given,  the 
typhoid  fever  had  entered  our  home,  and  was  also  fastening  upon 
myself,  so  that  I  was  scarcely  able  to  go  through  the  service.  I  was 
not  in  the  pulpit  again  for  eight  long  weeks  ;  and  then  when  the  storm 
was  past,  and  the  sun  shone  out  brightly  again,  one  of  our  number — 
our  dear  little  Lollie,  who  had  been  with  us  more  than  seven  beautiful 
years  —  had  passed  beyond  the  reach  of  the  chill  and  the  fever.  She 
had  entered  the  golden  gates.  Yes,  these  sermons  are  bound  up  with 
the  memory  of  the  early  going  away  of  that  fair,  sweet  life,  and  with 
grateful  recollections  of  the  prayers  and  sympathies  of  the  good 
people  of  Aurora,  and  of  one  of  the  kindest  congregations  that  ever 
surrounded  a  minister’s  family  in  the  hour  of  trial. 


Aurora ,  22.,  May,  1877. 


H.  W.  T. 


NOTE  BY  THE  PUBLISHERS. 


These  discourses  were  delivered  in  the  First  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church  of  Aurora,  Illinois,  in  the  Winter  of  1875-6,  and  the  following 
Spring,  and  were  reported  for  and  published  in  The  Auroba  Herald. 
They  awakened  a  deep  interest  in  those  who  heard  or  read  them,  and, 
in  deference  to  oft-repeated  requests,  they  are  now  given  to  the  public 
in  this  permanent  form.  The  questions  discussed  are  of  universal 
interest,  and  the  popular  manner  in  which  they  are  here  handled  will 
commend  the  book  to  the  great  mass  of  people  who  seek  the  truth, 
but  are  repelled  by  the  harsh  dogmatism  that  marks  the  ordinary 
theological  treatise. 


CONTENTS. 

Pm 

I— GOD,  OR  FIRST  CAUSE,  -  -  9 

n— CREATOR  AND  CREATED,  -  19 

HI— ORIGIN  AND  ANTIQUITY  OF  OUR  RACE,  -  83 

IV— THE  PROBLEM  OF  EYIL,  -  -  47 

Y— THE  GOVERNMENT  OF  GOD,  -  -  59 

YI -SALVATION,  -  75 

VTI— THE  CHANGE  WE  CALL  DEATH,  -  -  89 

VIH— THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL,  -  101 

IX— THE  INTERMEDIATE  STATE,  -  -  115 

X— THE  RESURRECTION,  -  -  127 

XI— THE  JUDGMENT  DAY,  -  -  143 

in— THE  QUESTION  OF  FUTURE  PUNISHMENT,  157 

Xin— THE  HEAVENLY  WORLD,  -  -  173 

XIV— CLOSING  THOUGHTS,  188 


GOD,  OK  FIKST  CAUSE. 


In  the  beginning  God  created  the  heaven  and  the  earth. — Genesis,  i,  1. 

WE  say  that  this  is  the  12th  day  of  December.  We 
say  that  this  is  the  year  1875.  We  say  that  it  is  the 
Sabbath  evening,  and  that  we  are  gathered  here  in 
the  house  of  worship.  We  say  that  we  look  into  each  other’s 
faces,  and  that  you  hear  my  words.  But  is  this  a  dream,  or  i8 
it  reality?  For  in  the  night-time  we  have  often  dreamed 
that  we  have  seen  large  assemblages ;  we  have  heard  music 
and  singing ;  we  have  listened  to  sermon  or  lecture  ;  we 
have  loved,  we  have  hoped,  we  have  wept,  we  have  been 
glad — and  in  the  morning  we  have  found  it  was  only  a 
dream.  There  have  not  been  wanting,  in  our  world’s  history, 
those  who  have  held  that  all  our  day-life  is  only  another 
kind  of  a  day-dream.  And,  when  we  come  to  think  of  it,  it 
is  not  the  easiest  thing  to  disprove  this.  I  do  not  know  how 
to  prove  that  I  am  here  better  than  just  to  say  so.  I  do  not 
know  how  I  can  be  much  more  certain  of  the  fact  than  I  am 
of  certain  facts  in  my  dreams.  Yet  some  how  we  feel  that 
there  is  something  more  in  this  life  than  simply  an  illusion, 
and  I  guess  that  our  senses  do  not  deceive  us.  The  revolving 


10 


The  Origin  and  Destiny  of  Man. 


earth  is  beneath  our  feet ;  the  heavens  are  above  our  heads. 
But  if  this  be  so,  how  came  we  here  ?  How  and  whence  did 
we  come  ?  Are  we  the  results  of  some  process  of  material 
nature,  the  fortuitous  concurrence  of  innumerable  atoms,  or 
are  we  the  creatures  of  a  living  God  ?  Is  there  an  order  and 
a  plan  about' our  being  ?  Shall  our  days  end  with  the  autumn 
and  the  snow,  or  will  there  be  a  spring  time,  and  shall  we 
awake  in  the  long  to-morrow  and  be  forever  ? 

Such  great  questions  as  these  press  unceasingly  upon 
thoughtful  men.  They  are  the  real  questions  that  stay  by 
men  and  women,  lingering  ever  near  the  head  and  the  heart. 
They  are  the  questions  which  we  ponder  in  the  morning 
before  we  arise,  and  in  the  night-time  after  we  lie  down.  I 
have  thought  to  draw  your  attention  to  them  in  a  number  of 
discourses  ranging  through  these  wide  realms  of  thought.  In 
the  method  of  these  discourses  my  remarks  will  be  purely 
extemporaneous,  and  they  will  be  addressed  to  the  ear  rather 
than  to  the  cold,  critical  eye  that  reads  the  printed  page.  I 
want  to  talk  to  you  as  familiarly  from  this  desk  as  I  would  by 
your  firesides,  and  I  shall  place  first  among  the  guides  along 
our  pathway,  common  sense — the  grand  faculty  of  human 
reason.  I  promise  you  that  nothing  shall  knowingly  pass 
from  this  pulpit  that  is  contrary  to  reason.  And  I  say,  just  as 
frankly,  that  I  bow  down  my  head  to  the  light  that  is  above 
reason,  but  I  am  not  willing  to  admit  a  contradiction.  There 
is  a  difference  between  a  mystery  and  a  contradiction.  I  have 
no  patience  with  that  school  of  philosophers  and  theologians 
that  would  belittle  human  reason.  Every  man  and  every 
woman  owes  it  to  himself  or  herself  to  be  true  to  the  head 


God,  or  First  Cause. 


11 


they  carry  as  well  as  to  the  heart  that  beats  within  them.  We 
shall  gather  what  light  we  can  from  the  Bible  and  from  the 
histories  that  have  been  written  of  our  earth.  We  shall  open 
some  of  the  pages  that  have  been  devoted  to  science,  and  thus 
try  to  bring  the  mind  to  the  knowledge  of  truth,  come  whence 
it  may.  We  shall  many  times  come  to  places  where  it  is  dark 
and  difficult,  to  problems  that  we  cannot  yet  solve,  and  often 
we  shall  have  to  turn  away  and  say,  “It  is  not  all  clear.” 
There  will  be  many  in  the  audience,  perhaps,  who,  on  some 
points,  will  have  more  right  to  take  the  stand  and  be  the 
preacher,  while  I  sit  and  listen.  Yet  I  trust  we  may  all  be 
benefited  by  the  discussion. 

We  have  all  felt  the  constant  coming  up  of  the  great  prob¬ 
lem  of  the  First  Cause,  and  have  pondered  the  other  questions, 
closely  connected  with  it,  of  the  origin  of  our  race,  the  crea¬ 
tion  of  our  earth  and  the  universe  of  which  it  is  a  part.  I 
speak  to-night  upon  the  thought  of  God,  or  the  First  Cause. 
Next  Sunday  night  I  shall  take  up  the  question  of  Creator 
and  Created,  and  then  pass  along  to  questions  more  directly 
related  to  ourselves. 

The  human  mind  is  so  constituted  that  it  is  ever  seeking 
for  causation,  and  it  never  rests  till  in  this  it  is  satisfied.  If  a 
man  is  taken  sick,  he  experiences  relief  and  feels  better  the 
moment  he  has  traced  the  malady  to  its  immediate  cause.  In 
seeking  causation,  there  has  been  in  all  ages  the  thought  of  a 
first  cause — a  cause  that  seems  to  be  back  of  what  appears  to 
the  eye  ;  and  the  question  arises,  how  is  it  that  we  all  come, 
in  looking  at  nature,  to  thiuk  of  a  power  back  of  what  we 
see?  I  will  suggest,  as  has  been  done  by  a  distinguished 


12 


The  Origin  and  Destiny  of  Man. 


author,  on©  of  the  sources  from  which  this  inquiry  for  a  first 
cause  comes  to  us.  We  are  conscious  in  ourselves  that  there 
is  a  power  within  us — a  power  by  which  we  open  and  close 
our  hands,  move  the  limbs  in  walking,  or  look  out  of  the  eyes 
and  see  the  objects  before  us.  Now  the  mind  observes  that 
the  elements  about  us  seem  to  be  be  doing  certain  things : 
trees  grow,  water  runs,  clouds  drift  across  the  sky,  storms 
sweep  over  the  earth.  Hence,  I  suppose,  the  uninstructed 
mind  has  been  disposed  to  place  in  everything  that  has  the 
power  of  motion,  conscious  volition.  If  a  savage  were  looking 
at  a  clock  for  the  first  time,  he  would  probably  first  notice  the 
motion  of  each  wheel,  and  think  that  it  had  life  in  itself ;  then 
perhaps  he  would  observe  that  some  wheels  moved  other 
wheels,  and  finally  he  might  discover  that  one  wheel  moved 
all  the  rest.  So  of  the  human  mind.  It  is  ever  struggling 
toward  that  which  tends  to  unite  all  roads  and  bring  together 
all  powers,  and  put  them  nearer  and  nearer  into  one — and 
thus  reaches  unity,  First  Cause,  or  God. 

Looking  back  to  the  days  contemporary  with  Darius  and 
Cyrus,  you  will  find  among  the  speculations  of  the  first  think¬ 
ers  of  Greece  the  thought  of  Thales.  His  mind  rested  on 
water  as  the  great  first  cause.  That  seemed  to  him  the  most 
universal  element  in  all  nature.  It  made  mighty  rivers,  and 
sent  them  flowing  to  the  still  mightier  ocean ;  it  descende  d 
from  heaven  in  showers  of  rain  th  at  refreshed  man  and  beast ; 
it  was  even  one  of  the  chief  components  of  the  fluids  that 
circulate  in  the  human  body.  It  seemed  to  the  mind  of 
Thales  to  pervade  everything.  Hence  he  came  to  the  conclu-  * 
aion  that  water  was  the  life  of  everything.  After  him  came 


God,  or  First  Cause. 


13 


Anaximenes.  He  thought  Thales  had  made  a  mistake  ;  that 
it  was  not  in  water  but  in  air  that  the  first  principle  of  all 
things  was  to  be  found.  What  was  more  universal  than  the 
air?  After  him  came  Pythagoras,  taking  up  the  same  question. 
He,  being  a  mathematician  rather  than  an  observer,  placed 
the  foundation  and  origin  of  things  in  numbers.  What 
struck  the  mind  more  prominently  than  the  unit  ?  No  matter 
what  combinations  you  make,  still  the  unit  is  there.  He  went 
a  step  farther,  and,  being  a  musician  as  well  as  a  mathema¬ 
tician,  he  thought  it  was  not  only  in  numbers  but  in  time, 
and  in  music  and  mathematics  together  he  thought  he  had 
discovered  the  first  cause. 

The  thinking  of  our  time  reduces  the  question  to  a  few 
simple  propositions,  and  we  have  three  prominent  forms  of 
thought :  first,  Atheism  ;  second,  Pantheism  ;  third,  Theism, 
or  the  doctrine  of  the  Bible.  The  Atheist  believes  there  is  no 
God.  The  second  form  of  thought,  or  Pantheism,  is  that 
Eastern  doctrine  which  holds  that  God  is  everywhere  and  in 
everything  ;  that  when  we  say  God,  we  mean  the  vast  system 
of  things — in  short,  nature  itself.  In  contrast  with  this,  we 
have  that  form  of  thought  which  is  the  basis  of  Christianity. 
This  distinctly  separates  the  living  God  from  the  universe. 
The  Bible  familiarizes  us  with  the  thought  of  a  personal  God, 
a  living  God,  who  exists  aside  from  and  independent  of  these 
things  as  much  as  a  mechanic  is  independent  of  the  house  he 
builds,  or  the  author  of  the  work  which  his  brain  conceives 
and  executes.  Now  the  great  question  is,  how  to  reach  and 
rest  in  the  conclusion  of  a  personal,  living  God,  and  those  who 
have  not  given  much  attention  to  the  subject  can  hardly 


14  The  Origin  and  Destiny  cf  Man. 

realize  how  difficult  it  is  for  the  mind  to  reach  absolute  cer¬ 
tainty.  And  the  more  we  look  over  the  field,  the  less  inclined 
are  we  to  fly  in  the  faces  of  those  who  cannot  find  God. 

I  will  give  you  the  best  reason  we  have  on  this  subject,  and 
yet  it  fails  to  satisfy  all  minds.  We  lay  down  the  propo¬ 
sition  that  something  is.  Then  we  advance  a  step,  and  say 
that  either  something  always  was,  or  else  there  was  a  time 
when  there  was  nothing.  Now,  if  there  was  a  time  when 
there  was  nothing,  there  would  be  nothing  still,  for  yon 
cannot  conceive  that  something  came  out  of  nothing  ;  but  as 
something  is,  therefore  something  always  was.  I  do  not  see  any 
possible  flaw  in  this  argument,  but  it  only  proves  that  some¬ 
thing  always  was.  It  may  have  been  matter,  or  it  may  have 
been  something  back  of  matter.  Now  we  reason  from  cause  to 
effect.  From  a  design  and  an  intelligence  we  reach  the 
conclusion  that  there  was  a  designer  back  of  the  thing 
designed.  If  some  one  hears  a  piece  of  music  played  on  the 
organ,  he  naturally  supposes  that  intelligence  and  skill  must 
have  been  used  to  construct  an  instrument  that  would  produce 
such  harmony.  If  he  visits  a  woolen  mill  or  a  silver-plate 
factory,  he  does  not  need  to  be  told  that  the  very  highest 
intelligence  was  required  to  construct  the  intricate  machinery 
that  produces  such  beautiful  and  beneficent  results.  But 
there  are  different  ways  of  accounting  for  these  things.  One 
man  would  say  that  some  thinker  planned  this  organ  ;  some 
mechanic  designed  and  constructed  the  machinery  in  the 
woolen  factory  and  in  the  silver-plate  factory.  Another  man 
might  come  along  and  say:  “Don’t  you  know  better  than 
that  ?  The  way  these  things  came  was  this  :  There  was  a 


God,  or  First  Cause. 


15 


a  great  storm  centuries,  ages  ago,  which  brought  into  exist¬ 
ence  the  raw  materials  of  which  these  various  articles  are 
made.  Another  storm  blew  together  the  saw-mill  that  sawed 
the  lumber,  and  the  furnace  and  the  rolling-mill  which  smelted 
the  iron  and  made  the  steel.  Another  storm  took  that  iron 
and  steel  and  lumber,  and  fashioned  them  into  the  forms  and 
shapes  and  combinations  that  pour  forth  the  rich  harmony 
which  delights  our  sense  of  hearing,  that  make  the  fabrics 
which  give  warmth  and  comfort  to  the  body,  and  that  produce 
the  beautiful  wares  which  adorn  our  tables.  Now,  are  you  so 
far  behind  the  times  that  you  will  believe  that  there  was  any 
intelligent  design  directing  these  various  and  delicate  opera¬ 
tions  ?”  So  would  some  men  reason.  Well,  I  should  prefer  to 
believe  that  some  intelligent  being  built  the  organ,  and  the 
mill,  and  the  factory.  I  cannot  believe  that  chance  did  all 
this.  The  papers  will  come  out  in  the  morning,  freighted 
with  intelligence  and  thought.  Some  may  think  that  their 
regular  appearance  is  all  the  result  of  chance  ;  but  when  I 
take  up  a  copy  of  one  of  them,  I  cannot  believe  otherwise 
than  that  design  and  intelligence  have  been  at  work  express¬ 
ing  thought,  gathering  news,  arranging  the  types,  and 
performing  all  the  operations  necessary  to  make  a  newspaper. 
And  though  I  have  never  seen  God,  and  have  never  touched 
His  robes,  and  though  my  reason  cannot  find  its  way  into 
His  presence,  yet  do  I  feel  that  it  is  more  reasonable  to 
suppose  that  He  designed  and  created  this  world  than  to 
believe  that  these  things  came  here  by  chance. 

The  only  trouble  in  the  argument  is  this  :  We  trace  back 
the  construction  of  the  organ  to  the  hand  and  brain  of  man. 


16 


The  Origin  and  Destiny  of  Man, 


and  we  say  God  made  man  ;  and  then  the  question  that  trem¬ 
bles  on  the  lips  of  all  is,  Who  made  God  ?  And  we  are  all 
silent.  The  smallest  child  can  go  j  ust  as  far  in  answer  to  that 
question  as  the  wisest  philosopher.  But  this  I  can  say  :  if 
we  reach  what  seems  to  be  final  causation,  I  do  not  see  that 
we  are  compelled  to  go  beyond  that.  And  in  the  thought  of 
an  all-creating  and  informing  Spirit  that  is  back  of  us,  I  rest 
with  a  degree  of  mental  comfort.  Yet  it  is,  after  all,  rather 
by  my  heart  that  I  perceive  and  know  God,  than  by  my 
thinking  that  I  find  Him  out. 

But  here  is  another  thing.  Something  always  was.  Was 
that  something  which  was  first  matter  or  mind  ?  It  is  sup¬ 
posed  that  Tyndall,  in  projecting  his  vision  over  the  past,  and 
finding  in  matter  the  origin  of  all  things,  has  gone  in  the 
direction  of  Pantheism,  if  not  Atheism.  Let  us  admit  this 
fact.  Matter  was  first ;  but  mind  is  now.  We  see  its  works 
in  the  poetry  of  Homer,  the  mathematics  of  Newton,  the 
reason  of  Bacon,  the  philosophy  of  Aristotle.  Now,  if  matter 
existed  first,  matter  has  made  mind.  And  if  matter  can  make 
mind,  I  do  not  see  why  it  cannot  make  the  Mayor  of  a  city  or 
the  Governor  of  a  State.  If  there  is  something  in  matter  that 
can  turn  out  minds  like  those  of  Shakespeare  or  Milton, 
where  shall  it  end  ?  Indeed,  why  should  it  not  maintain 
its  progression,  and  finally  produce  an  archangel,  or  even  a 
God  ?  If  matter  was  first,  and  mind  second,  then  matter 
has  brought  forth  that  which  controls  it.  But  as  mind  seems 
to  be  the  superior  thing  here,  I  prefer  to  think  that  mind 
was  first,  and  to  believe  that  an  informing  Spirit  made  things 
take  their  shape. 


God,  or  First  Cause. 


17 


Now,  what  do  we  include  under  the  thought  of  this  First 
Cause  ?  What  do  we  mean  when  we  pronounce  the  name  of  a 
living  God  ?  The  thought  we  seek  to  express  is  this  :  that  God 
is  the  principle  of  principles — the  unit  that  contains  all  the 
principles — the  sum  of  all  the  principles.  We  have  a  concep¬ 
tion  of  power — that  vast  something  that  resides  in  things,  by 
which  we  move,  and  by  which  the  world  is  upheld.  We  have 
a  conception  of  wisdom — that  wisdom  which  is  the  sum  of  all 
wisdom,  that  arranges  everything,  that  is  back  of  everything, 
and  in  everything.  We  have  a  conception  of  goodness — the 
goodness  that  prompts  to  deeds  of  charity  and  kindness.  We 
have  a  conception  of  beauty — the  beauty  that  exists  in  all 
nature,  in  the  glistening  dew-drop,  in  the  opening  flower,  in 
the  winding  stream.  In  equal  degree  we  have  the  conception 
of  truth,  and  of  love,  and  justice.  Now,  we  have  all  these 
thoughts,  but  do  we  hold  them  as  mere  abstractions  ?  We 
speak  of  beauty,  but  not  as  an  abstract  thing.  The  beauty 
that  is  in  the  flower  is  concreted  there,  and  is  a  part  of  it.  So 
of  all  the  qualities  named.  We  do  not  think  of  them  as  mere 
names  for  some  subtle  things  that  we  cannot  grasp.  They 
are  concreted  in  the  objects  to  which  we  apply  them.  I  take 
all  these  thoughts  of  power,  and  wisdom,  of  goodness,  and 
beauty,  and  truth,  and  love,  and  apply  them  to  God,  not  as 
abstractions,  but  as  qualities  that  inhere  in  and  constitute 
the  personality  of  the  Supreme  Being. 

When  I  have  done  this,  I  have  indicated  the  last  labor  that 
mankind  can  do  in  spelling  out  the  name  of  God.  It  is  He 
who  kindles  in  my  poor  brain  and  yours  the  power  of 

thought,  the  sense  of  right,  the  hope  of  immortality.  This  is 
2 


18 


The  Origin  and  Destiny  of  Man. 


the  Being  whose  face  is  seen  in  the  storm  and  is  reflected 
back  from  sky  and  star;  that  Being  who  is  the  sum  of  all 
goodness,  and  wisdom,  and  beauty ;  who  makes  possible  the 
blush  on  the  maiden’s  cheek  and  the  tear  in  the  mother’s  eye ; 
who  makes  possible  all  there  is  in  our  poor  yet  grand  natures. 
And  this  Supreme  Being  speaks  to  us  as  our  Father,  yearning 
over  us  in  the  tenderness  and  depth  of  a  love  that  streams 
down  from  the  starry  way.  The  absolute  and  the  infinite  was 
manifest — became  the  finite  in  the  Son  of  God.  This  great 
Being  is  not  only  Father  but  Saviour.  He,  in  the  person  of 
His  Son,  went  down  into  the  manger  and  among  the  little 
children  that  He  might  show  us  how  near  we  are  to  the  ox 
in  the  stall  and  the  child  in  the  cradle.  He  went  to  Geth- 
semane,  and  suffered  on  Calvary,  that  God  might  be  revealed 
to  you  and  to  me — that  He  might  look  through  human  eyes, 
and  speak  with  human  lips — that  the  love  which  palpitates 
over  the  universe  might  beat  in  a  human  heart.  My  friends, 
trust  Him  as  Father,  trust  Him  as  Saviour.  Compared  with 
His  greatness.  His  love  and  goodness,  how  less  than  nothing 
seems  everything  that  reigns  beneath  the  skies ! 


II. 


CREATOR  AND  CREATED. 


These  are  the  generations  of  the  heavens  and  of  the  earth  when  they 
were  created,  in  the  day  that  the  Lord  made  the  earth  and  the  heav¬ 
ens.— Genesis,  ii,  4. 

ONE  beautiful  morning  last  summer,  being  a  guest  of  an 
old  and  esteemed  friend  at  Mount  Pleasant,  Iowa,  the 
table  had  been  spread  for  breakfast  on  the  porch, 
beneath  the  shadow  of  a  great  tree.  There  had  been  nailed 
against  the  wall  a  small  fruit-can,  that  served  as  a  shelter  and 
a  nest  for  a  pair  of  friendly  wrens ;  and  it  so  happened  that 
while  we  were  sitting  at  the  table,  the  young  birds  made  their 
first  attempt  to  reach  the  outside  world.  Watching  them  as 
they  tried  their  strength  and  entered  upon  their  new  being,  I 
fell  to  musing  upon  the  fact  of  their  origin.  Only  a  few  w’eeks 
before  there  had  been  nothing  in  the  nest  but  the  seemingly 
lifeless  egg ;  and  now  came  forth  the  living  bird.  And  I  sup¬ 
pose,  had  I  thought  upon  this  without  any  knowledge  of  the 
facts,  or  had  you  so  thought  of  it,  and  had  we  taken  and 
examined  one  of  those  birds,  wre  would  have  thought  of  some 
such  process  as  this  :  that  some  skillful  mechanic  had  wrought 
out  the  frame-work  of  the  bird,  moulding  the  bones  and  join¬ 
ing  them  together  ;  that  some  ingenious  workman  had  made 


20 


The  Origin  and  Destiny  of  Man. 


the  muscles,  the  flesh  and  the  vital  organs ;  that  some  artist 
had  constructed  the  eye  and  the  ear,  and  painted  the  wings ; 
that  some  rare  genius  had  brought  the  various  parts  together, 
given  them  a  living  organization,  and  thus  made  a  living  bird. 
And  as  I  sat  thinking  of  the  wonderful  mystery  of  the  bird 
being  evolved  from  the  egg,  my  thoughts  went  on,  and  I  tried 
to  see  the  process  by  which  not  only  birds  but  all  the  forms  of 
animal  and  vegetable  life  are  made.  And  this  led  me  to  the 
thought  of  God,  or  first  oause,  which  I  sought  to  lay  before 
you  last  Sabbath  evening.  And  having  considered  that 
thought,  I  come  now  to  speak  on  the  method  and  magnitude 
of  God’s  creations. 

Beginning  with  the  thought  of  a  first  cause,  a  living  and 
informing  intelligence,  there  comes  up,  as  one  of  the  prob¬ 
lems  to  be  considered,  the  origin  of  matter — whether  it  were 
eternal  or  whether  it  were  created.  And  when  you  come  to 
think  upon  the  fact  of  creation,  it  is  one  of  the  most  difficult 
questions  that  the  mind  can  attempt — the  thought  of  creating 
that  which  in  no  sense  existed  before.  The  difficulties  are  so 
great  that  I  am  strongly  inclined  to  agree  with  Sir  William 
Hamilton,  who  says  that  when  we  come  to  the  very  crisis  of 
creation,  we  cannot  conceive  that  there  was  anything  more 
in  creation  a  moment  after  the  act  than  there  was  in  God  the 
moment  before,  and  nothing  less  in  God  the  moment  after 
than  there  was  the  moment  before  creation.  But  though 
it  did  not  exist  in  the  shape  in  which  we  now  see  it,  yet  there 
was,  potentially,  back  in  God  Himself,  all  that  we  now  see  in 
outward  creation.  “He  spake,  and  it  was  done;  He  com¬ 
manded,  and  it  stood  fast.”  And  when  we  consider  the 


Creator  and  Created. 


21 


method  of  God  in  creation,  I  think  we  make  a  great  mistake 
if  we  think  of  Him  as  a  workman  operating  from  the  out¬ 
side.  Bather,  I  think,  should  we  look  upon  Him  as  working 
from  within — upon  the  universe  as  the  thought  of  God 
projected  and  actualized — the  thought  of  God  taking  shape 
in  material  things.  If  we  so  think  of  God  having  in  His 
might  once  started  life,  beginning  down  in  the  simplest 
rudimentary  forms,  we  soon  realize  how  natural  it  is,  and 
we  see  how  the  rudest  forms  have  their  correspondences  in 
the  highest  types  of  created  beings.  As  an  example,  take 
the  thought  of  the  lungs,  and  observe  the  thought  rising  from 
the  simplest  conception — that  which  nature  has  provided  in 
the  leaf  of  a  tree — to  the  perfect  lungs  of  man.  Or  take  the 
thought  of  the  hand.  How  wonderful  is  the  progress,  all  the 
way  from  the  wing  of  the  bat,  the  leg  and  hoof  of  the  animal, 
to  the  almost  speaking  hand  of  man.  I  say  that,  thinking  of 
God  in  this  way,  as  working  from  within,  we  may  reflect  upon 
His  thought  as  actualized  in  the  universe  about  us.  I  cannot 
refrain  from  thinking  that  the  universe  was,  in  a  sense,  born 
as  well  as  made.  It  is  in  accordance  with  the  teachings  of  the 
Scriptures  that  God  impressed  his  thought  upon  matter; 
that  the  vast  universe  was  not  built  as  a  mechanic  builds  his 
house  ;  but  that  in  some  way  God  breathed  an  informing  and 
controlling  spirit  or  life  into  matter,  and  that  matter,  impelled 
by  this  life  and  power,  moved  forward  along  the  lines  that 
God  intended. 

Now,  if  you  have  succeeded  in  getting  the  thought  I  have 
indicated  here,  I  will  endeavor  to  give  the  possible  process  by 
which  the  worlds  were  made — looking  at  God  not  as  an  outside 


22 


The  Origin  and  Destiny  of  Man . 


workman,  but  as  somehow  impressing  the  law  of  their  being 
upon  things,  and  things  then  moving  forward  in  obedience  to 
that  law.  When  we  look  out  upon  the  solar  system,  we  are 
impressed  with  several  facts.  We  are  impressed  with  the 
thought  of  these  stupendous  worlds  revolving  around  a  com¬ 
mon  centre,  on  a  plane  coincident  with  the  plane  of  the 
ecliptic,  and  that  this  plane  is  coincident  with  the  plane  of 
the  solar  equinox ;  that  these  planets  all  revolve  in  the  same 
direction.  The  law  of  gravity  is  not  responsible  for  this,  and 
hence  it  has  been  supposed  that  there  was  a  time  when  the 
material  that  composes  our  solar  system  existed  in  a  nebu¬ 
lous  state,  and  that  this  nebulous,  vaporous  mass  filled  all 
the  space  that  would  be  included  between  the  Sun  and  the 
orbit  of  Neptune.  To  this  mass  was  given  a  rotary  motion, 
and  as  it  revolved,  it  would  cool  by  radiation  ;  as  it  cooled, 
it  would  condense ;  as  it  condensed,  it  would  increase  in 
velocity ;  and  as  the  velocity  increased,  the  centrifugal  force 
would  become  more  powerful  than  the  centripetal,  and  this 
would  cause  ring  after  ring  to  be  thrown  off.  These  rings 
would  continue  to  revolve,  and  in  breaking  up  would  form 
centres  of  their  own.  This  is  the  supposed  process  by  which 
the  all-controlling  mind  of  God  set  the  forces  at  work  out 
of  which  was  evolved  this  vast  universe  as  simply  and  natur¬ 
ally  as  the  little  wren  was  evolved  from  its  shell. 

Let  us  look  out  along  this  method  and  see  its  results. 
In  the  words  of  the  text,  “These  are  the  generations  of  the 
heavens  and  of  the  earth,  when  they  were  created.”  I  ask 
you  to  think  for  a  moment  upon  the  magnitude  of  this 
creation.  Think  of  the  Sun — that  vast  body  constantly  pour- 


Creator  and  Created. 


23 


ing  forth  light  and  heat.  It  is  said  by  astronomers  that  it  is 
888,000  miles  in  diameter;  a  line  drawn  through  its  centre 
would  reach  around  our  globe  more  than  thirty-five  times. 
Or  think  of  it  in  another  way.  Suppose  it  were  a  hollow 
sphere,  and  that  by  some  means  our  Earth  were  suspended 
in  the  centre  of  that  sphere,  and  that  we  could  stand  upon 
Earth,  and  look  up  to  the  rim  of  the  Sun  ;  so  vast  is  the  Sun 
that  the  surface  our  eyes  would  rest  upon  would  be  larger  than 
the  heavens  we  look  at  on  a  clear  day.  Look  at  it  in  still 
another  way.  It  is  said  that  the  Sun  is  1,384,000  times  larger 
than  our  Earth.  It  is  only  by  the  aid  of  the  imagination 
that  we  can  take  in  this  stupendous  magnitude.  Why,  if  the 
Sun  were  hollow,  and  worlds  the  size  of  this  had  been  thrown 
in,  one  every  day,  since  the  time  of  Abraham,  the  Sun  would 
hardly  yet  be  filled  up. 

Now,  taking  the  Sun  as  a  starting  point,  let  us  travel  out¬ 
ward.  At  a  distance  of  35,000,000  miles,  we  come  to  the 
planet  Mercury,  sweeping  around  the  Sun  in  eighty-eight 
days.  In  order  to  accomplish  the  circuit  in  so  short  a  time,  it 
moves  with  a  velocity  of  100,000  miles  an  hour.  Traveling 
on,  we  come  next,  at  a  distance  of  68,000,000  miles — I  give  the 
figures  from  memory,  and  the  calculations  have  varied  some¬ 
what  in  late  years — we  reach  the  planet  Yenus,  a  world  not  so 
large  as  ours,  revolving  around  the  sun  in  two  hundred  and 
eighty-eight  of  our  days.  Then  we  come  to  the  Earth,  at  a 
distance  of  91,000,000  or  92,000,000  miles  from  the  Sun,  having 
a  diameter  of  8,000  miles,  turning  on  its  own  axis  every 
twenty-four  hours,  revolving  around  the  Sun  in  three  hundred 
and  sixty-five  days,  and  having  a  satellite,  or  Moon,  which, 


24 


The  Origin  and  Destiny  of  Man. 


according  to  our  theory,  was  thrown  off  from  the  Earth  while 

♦ 

it  was  yet  in  a  nebulous  condition.  Our  satellite  is  237,000 
miles  distant  from  us,  and  revolves  on  its  axis  in  such  a  man¬ 
ner  as  to  always  present  the  same  surface  to  us.  At  a  distance 
of  140,000,000  miles  we  come  to  the  planet  Mars,  having  a 
diameter  of  4,400  miles,  and  completing  its  circuit  around  the 
Sun  in  about  six  hundred  and  eighty-six  days.  At  a  distance 
of  500,000,000  miles,  passing  beyond  the  Asteroids,  we  come 
to  that  wonderful  old  world,  Jupiter,  92,000  miles  in  diam¬ 
eter,  requiring  twelve  years  to  travel  its  long  circuit  around 
the  Sun,  having  four  satellites,  or  Moons,  revolving  around  it 
in  various  periods.  Beyond  Jupiter,  at  a  distance  from  the 
Sun  of  906,000,000  miles,  is  the  planet  Saturn,  75,000  miles  in 
diameter,  requiring  thirty  years  to  travel  its  stupendous  cir¬ 
cuit  around  the  Sun,  having  not  only  eight  Moons,  but  its 
beautiful  rings,  that  appear  to  us  like  threads  of  golden  light. 
Then,  traveling  on  to  a  distance  of  1,888,000,000  miles,  we 
come  to  the  world  Uranus,  requiring  eighty  years  to  perform 
its  revolution  around  the  Sun.  Traveling  still  outward, 
2,800,000,000  miles  from  the  Sun,  we  come  to  the  latest  dis¬ 
covered  planet,  Neptune,  requiring  one  hundred  and  sixty 
years  to  traverse  its  orbit. 

As  I  look  up  to  the  starry  way,  and  think  of  these  vast  mag¬ 
nitudes  and  distances,  there  comes  a  sense  of  the  infinite,  a 
sense  of  the  wonderful  power  and  wisdom  of  God,  that  is 
overwhelming.  Yet  this  grand  system  of  worlds,  under  God’s 
informing  thought,  which  His  will  impresses  upon  things — 
these  worlds  have  slowly  taken  their  places  with  all  the  ease 
and  naturalness  that  the  bud  unfolds  and  the  flower  blooms. 


Creator  and  Created. 


25 


And  we  have  only  touched  upon  the  vast  conception.  The 
stars  that  you  see  as  you  gaze  upon  the  heavens  are  Suns, 
around  which  other  worlds  are  moving,  as  our  world  moves 
about  our  Sun.  So  distant  are  these  stars  that  light  traveling 
at  the  rate  of  twelve  million  miles  a  minute  requires  nine  years 
to  reach  us  from  the  nearest  fixed  star.  The  light  from  the 
North  Star  is  forty  years  in  traveling  to  the  Earth.  From 
some  it  takes  thousands  and  possibly  tens  of  thousands  of 
years.  And  thus  we  look  upon  this  vast  universe,  systems  of 
worlds  rising  one  above  the  other — sun  systems,  group  sys¬ 
tems,  nebular  systems,  on  up  to  the  ultimate,  or  universe 
system. 

Having  sketched  these  outlines  of  the  solar  system,  I  want 
to  change  the  order,  and  return  to  our  Earth,  and  give  some 
thoughts  as  to  the  probable  process  by  which  it  became  what 
it  is.  This  globe,  then,  was  thrown  off  from  the  Sun.  There 
would  come  a  time  when  the  Earth,  by  contraction  and  cool¬ 
ing,  would  form  a  crust.  This  crust  would  naturally  exclude 
all  matter  that  might  be  outside  of  it  that  had  not  been 
attracted  to  it.  We  now  look  at  our  world  as  a  ball  of  fire, 
then,  as  it  cooled,  rolling  on  in  darkness.  This  was  the  first, 
or  azoic,  period.  No  one  knows  how  long  this  globe  rolled  on 
through  space,  a  fiery  mass  of  rock-encrusted  substance,  and 
then  a  world  without  light.  Then  there  would  come  a  time 
when  the  crust  would  cool,  and  the  waters  falling  on  it  would 
gather  about  it.  This  was  the  paleozoic  period,  when  the 
first  forms  of  life  began  to  appear.  At  first  there  were  only 
manifestations  of  vegetable  life,  but,  later,  forms  of  animal 
life  began  to  appear.  Geologists  tell  ns  that  the  life  in  that 


26 


The  Origin  and  Destiny  of  Man . 


time  was  on  a  scale  far  greater  than  the  life  that  is  now  on 
the  earth.  It  was  of  a  different  form  and  of  a  grosser  type 
than  that  we  have  now.  Then  comes  the  carboniferous 
period,  when  the  air  was  so  full  of  carbon  that  the  forms  of 
life  that  now  exist  could  not  breathe  it.  The  soft  and 
abundant  vegetation  absorbed  the  carbon  and  threw  off  oxy¬ 
gen,  thus  purifying  the  air,  and  fitting  it  for  higher  forms  of 
life,  and  also  storing  this  carbon  away  for  the  coal  beds  of 
our  day.  Then  we  come  to  the  mesozoic  period,  and  to  the 
cenozoic,  or  recent  period  before  man,  when  the  continents 
were  lifted  up,  when  the  larger  animals  were  disappearing, 
and  when  the  forms  of  life  upon  the  land  became  as  they 
are  now.  Finally  we  come  to  the  period  of  the  finished 
world,  the  rivers  having  found  their  beds,  the  oceans  having 
been  gathered  together,  and  the  mountains  uplifted — the 
period  of  flowers  and  fruits,  and  birds  of  song  and  plumage — 
a  sweet,  fair  world,  that  God  had  builded  for  man. 

Now,  if  you  get  my  thought,  you  will  see  that  God  wrought 
from  within,  and  all  that  there  is  in  this  vast  universe  was 
some  how  projected  as  the  thought  of  God.  And  this 
thought  of  God  impresses  a  law  upon  matter,  in  obedience 
to  which  it  forms  itself  into  worlds. 

I  want  now  to  ask  your  attention  to  the  harmony  between 
science  and  religion,  between  science  aud  the  Bible,  on  this 
subject.  And  some  may  be  already  saying,  “  What  are  you 
going  to  do  with  that  good  old  book  of  Genesis  ?”  The  first 
point  of  correspondence  is  this  The  first  words  of  this  book 
are,  “In  the  beginning,  God.”  And  it  is  the  latest  utterance 
of  science — “In  the  beginning,  God.”  You  take  any  system 


Creator  and  Created. 


27 


of  philosophy,  press  that  system  back  to  the  boundaries 
where  the  great  thinkers  stood  and  sought  to  look  into  the 
deep  beyond,  and  those  thinkers,  all  the  way  from  Pythag¬ 
oras  to  Mill,  have  felt  that  there  was  some  power  back  of 

this  outward  world.  So  in  all  the  systems  of  science. 

Wherever  science  has  pursued  her  investigations — whether  she 
has  brought  her  microscope  to  bear  upon  the  very  structure 
of  the  human  blood,  or  has  turned  her  long  glass  toward  the 
heavens,  science  has  at  last  to  pronounce  these  words — “In 
the  beginning,  God.”  The  latest  utterance  from  Tyndall  is 
that  when  he  looks  out  into  the  vast  deep  of  things,  while  he 
cannot  put  it  into  personality,  yet  there  is  a  power  back  of 
all  which  he  cannot  grasp.  He  feels  that  there  must  be  some¬ 
body  who  knows  more  about  this  than  himself. 

Now  I  take  another  part  of  the  correspondence  between 

the  teachings  of  geology  and  the  account  of  the  creation 

given  in  Genesis.  It  is  here  stated  : 

“And  the  earth  was  without  form,  and  void ;  and  darkness  was  upon 
the  face  of  the  deep.  And  the  Spirit  of  God  moved  upon  the  face  of  the 

waters.” 

The  expression,  “without  form,  and  void,”  may  possibly 
indicate  the  idea  of  matter  being  in  a  nebulous  condition. 

“And  God  said,  Let  there  be  light :  and  there  was  light. 

“And  God  saw  the  light,  that  it  was  good :  and  God  divided  the  light 
from  the  darkness. 

“And  God  called  the  light  Day,  and  the  darkness  he  called  Night. 
And  the  evening  and  the  morning  were  the  first  day.” 

It  used  to  be  thought  a  strange  thing  that  light  should  ap¬ 
pear  on  the  first  day,  whereas  the  sun  was  not  created  until 
the  fourth  day.  But  it  is  now  admitted  by  scientists  that 


28 


The  Origin  and  Destiny  of  Man. 


cosmical  light  would  be  the  result  of  the  moving  of  this  mass 
of  unformed  matter.  Light  is  the  result  of  molecular  motion. 
So  that  on  this  point  science  and  the  Bible  have  come  to  an 
accordance  that  is  quite  remarkable.  Let  us  read  again: 

“And  God  said,  Let  there  be  a  firmament  in  the  midst  of  the  waters, 
and  let  it  divide  the  waters  from  the  waters. 

“And  God  made  the  firmament,  and  divided  the  waters  which  were 
under  the  firmament  from  the  waters  which  were  above  the  firmament : 
and  it  was  so. 

“And  God  called  the  firmament  Heaven.  And  the  evening  and  the 
morning  were  the  second  day. 

“  And  God  said,  Let  the  waters  under  the  heaven  be  gathered  together 
unto  one  place,  and  let  the  dry  land  appear  :  and  it  was  so. 

“And  God  called  the  dry  land  Earth  ;  and  the  gathering  together  of 
the  waters  called  he  Seas  :  and  God  saw  that  it  was  good. 

“  And  God  said,  Let  the  earth  bring  forth  grass,  the  herb  yielding 
seed,  and  the  fruit  tree  yielding  fruit  after  his  kind,  whose  seed  is  in 
itself,  upon  the  earth  :  and  it  was  so. 

“And  the  earth  brought  forth  grass,  and  herb  yielding  seed  after  his 
kind,  and  the  tree  yielding  fruit,  whose  seed  was  in  itself,  after  hia 
kind :  and  God  saw  that  it  was  good. 

“And  the  evening  and  the  morning  were  the  third  day.” 

Geology  teaches  this  same  great  fact  of  the  uplifting  of  the 
continents,  the  slow  receding  of  the  waters  so  that  the  dry 
land  appears,  the  gathering  of  the  waters  into  their  channels 
so  that  rivers  and  seas  are  formed.  And  science  teaches  this 
other  remarkable  fact,  that  vegetable  life  was  created  before 
animal  life.  The  Bible  and  science  come  closely  together 
here,  though  the  critic  may  find  apparent  discrepancies,  pos¬ 
sibly  real  ones.  But  there  is  a  general  correspondence  that  is 
most  remarkable  indeed.  Again: 

“And  God  said,  Let  there  be  lights  in  the  firmament  of  the  heaven  to 
divide  the  day  from  the  night  ;  and  let  them  he  for  signs,  and  for  sea¬ 
sons,  and  for  days,  and  years  : 


Creator  and  Created. 


29 


“And  let  them  be  for  lights  in  the  firmament  of  the  heaven  to  give 
light  upon  the  earth  :  and  it  was  so. 

“And  God  made  two  great  lights  ;  the  greater  light  to  rule  the  day, 
and  the  lesser  light  to  rule  the  night :  he  made  the  stars  also. 

“And  God  set  them  in  the  firmament  of  the  heaven  to  give  light 
upon  the  earth, 

“And  to  rule  over  the  day  and  over  the  night,  and  to  divide  the  light 
from  the  darkness  .  and  God  saw  that  it  was  good. 

“And  the  evening  and  the  morning  were  the  fourth  day.” 

This  account  of  the  creation  is  not  a  scientific  narration, 
but  rather  phenomenal.  It  is  not  probable  that  whoever 
wrote  the  book  of  Genesis  understood  these  things  from  a 
scientific  standpoint.  He  viewed  them  rather  with  the  eye 
of  a  looker-on.  The  appearance  of  the  Sun  on  the  fourth 
day  is  one  of  the  most  rational  things.  Before  that,  dense 
fogs  would  cover  the  earth,  and  it  would  be  a  long  period  be¬ 
fore  the  rays  of  the  Sun  would  pierce  these  murky  vapors. 
But  finally  these  would  disperse,  and  there  would  come  the 
Sun  burstiug  forth  in  all  its  splendor.  This  is  just  what 
science  would  lead  us  to  suppose. 

“And  God  said,  Let  the  waters  bring  forth  abundantly  the  moving 
creature  that  hath  life,  and  fowl  that  may  fly  above  the  earth  in  the 
open  firmament  of  heaven. 

“And  God  created  great  whales,  and  every  living  creature  that 
movetli,  which  the  waters  brought  forth  abundantly,  after  their  kind, 
and  ever  winged  fowl  after  his  Kind  :  and  God  saw  that  it  was  good. 

KAnd  God  blessed  them,  saying,  Be  fruitful,  and  multiply,  and  fill 
the  waters  in  the  seas,  and  let  fowl  multiply  in  the  earth. 

“And  the  evening  and  the  morning  were  the  fifth  day.” 

First,  the  appearance  of  vegetable  life  ;  after  that,  animal 
life,  first  in  the  waters,  just  where  science  places  it,  and  then 
on  the  dry  land.  A  remarkable  coincidence  again  here. 

“And  God  said,  Let  the  earth  bring  forth  the  living  creature  after  his 


30  The  Origin  and  Destiny  of  Man. 

kind  cattle,  and  creeping  thing,  and  beast  of  the  earth  after  his  kind  : 
and  it  was  so. 

“And  God  made  the  beast  of  the  earth  after  his  kind,  and  cattle  after 
their  kind,  and  every  thing  that  creep eth  upon  the  earth  after  his  kind : 
and  God  saw  that  it  was  good. 

“And  God  said,  Let  us  make  man  in  our  image,  after  our  likeness  : 
and  let  them  have  dominion  over  the  fish  of  the  sea,  and  over  the  fowl 
of  the  air,  and  over  the  cattle,  and  over  all  the  earth,  and  over  every 
creeping  thing  that  creepeth  upon  the  earth. 

“  So  God  created  man  in  his  own  image,  in  the  image  of  God  created 
he  him  ;  male  and  female  created  he  them. 

“And  God  blessed  them,  and  God  said  unto  them,  Be  fruitful,  and 
multiply,  and  replenish  the  earth,  and  subdue  it ,  and  have  dominion 
over  the  fish  of  the  sea,  and  over  the  fowl  of  the  air,  and  over  every 
living  thing  that  moveth  upon  the  earth.” 

Science  lias  placed,  first,  vegetable  life  ;  next,  animal  life  ; 
and,  finally  and  last,  mankind.  And  this  is  just  the  order 
in  which  the  Bible  places  them.  Now  I  raise  the  question, 
how  are  we  to  account  for  this  remarkable  correspondence  ? 
And  here  I  want  to  read  to  you  what  has  been  thought  on  the 
subject  in  other  lands,  though  I  must  necessarily  be  very 
brief.  First,  let  us  look  at  the  cosmogony  of  the  Babyloni¬ 
ans.  They  believed  that — 

“The  beginning  of  things  was  in  darkness  and  water,  where  nonde¬ 
script  animals,  hideous  monsters,  half-men  and  half-beasts,  appeared, 
and  after  this,  a  woman — who  personates  the  creative  spirit  or  principle 
— was  split  into  two  parts,  and  the  heaven  and  the  earth  produced  by 
the  division.  Then  Belus,  the  supreme  deity,  cut  off  his  own  head,  and 
his  blood  triclding  down  and  mingling  with  the  dust  of  the  earth,  pro¬ 
duced  human  creatures  having  intelligence  and  spiritual  life.  Accord¬ 
ing  to  the  Phoenician  cosmogony,  that  which  first  appeared  was  an 
ether  or  a  mist  diffused  in  space.  Then  arose  the  wind,  the  representa¬ 
tive  of  motion,  and  from  this  agitation  proceeded  a  spiritual  God,  from 
whom  again  in  turn  proceeded  an  egg — which  is  so  common  a  feature 
of  the  cosmogonies  of  antiquity — the  division  of  which,  as  in  the  case 
of  the  woman,  produced  the  heavens  and  the  earth.  The  noise  of 
thunder  awraked  beings  into  spiritual  life.  The  Egyptian  cosmogony 


Creator  and  Created. 


31 


was  in  general  harmony  with  the  Phoenician.  Its  principal  divinity  was 
Ptah,  the  world-creating  power,  who  shaped  the  cosmic  egg,  which 
again  appears  here,  as  in  the  Phoenician.  There  followed  from  Ptah  a 
long  succession  of  gods,  with  various  powers — solar,  telluric,  psychical 
— from  whom  at  length  proceeded  demi-gods,  and  from  these  again 
heroes,  until  the  link  of  our  common  humanity  was  established.” 

How  immeasurably  superior  to  these  accounts,  in  dignity 
and  nobility,  is  the  Bible  record  of  creation,  and  how  infin 
itely  more  truthful,  judged  by  the  lights  of  science! 

Now,  I  say,  if  there  were  no  inspiration  from  God  back  in 
the  mind  of  the  writer  of  this  book,  whether  it  was  Moses  or 
whoever  it  may  have  been,  how  came  it  that  four  thousand 
years  ago  he  produced  a  work  that  now  we  place  by  the  side 
of  the  latest  revelations  of  science,  and  find  that  the  corres¬ 
pondence  between  them  is  so  striking?  I  say  these  things 
that  young  men,  who  have  dipped  a  little  into  some  branches 
of  science,  who  have  perhaps  read  a  few  numbers  of  the 
Boston  Investigator,  or  imbibed  crude  notions  concerning 
Tyndall’s  theories,  and  think  that  the  Bible  has  been  blown 
away  as  a  myth, — that  they  may  look  at  this  great  fact- 
and  see  how,  with  this  broader  interpretation  of  Genesis, 
the  truths  of  the  Bible  stand  side  by  side  with  the  truths 
of  science.  But  I  am  asked,  What  do  you  do  with  these 
“days”?  Well,  when  we  come  to  compute  geological  time,  the 
most  we  can  do  is  to  guess.  The  word  “  day,”  as  here  used, 
is  simply  an  indefinite  expression  for  time  or  a  period.  Some 
give  to  each  of  these  periods  millions  of  years,  and  in  this 
view  we  get  a  clearer  interpretation  of  the  grand  old  saying 
that  “these  are  the  generations  of  the  heavens  and  of  the 
earth.” 

When  I  stand  in  the  presence  of  such  truths  as  these,  and 


32 


The  Origin  and  Destiny  of  Man. 


look  out  upon  the  starr y  depths,  and  the  great  Earth  sweeping 
through  space,  and  the  illimitable  universe  surrounding  us, 
mj  very  reason  seems  to  totter  as  it  stands  out  on  the  verge 
of  thought,  crying  out  for  that  cause  which  is  back  of  it  all. 
But  I  sit  down  by  the  babbling  brook,  I  hear  the  singing  of 
the  birds,  and  behold  the  bursting  of  bad  and  blossom,  and  I 
thank  God  for  that  thought  of  the  infinite  over  which  a 
Socrates  has  struggled,  over  which  a  Mill  has  struggled,  over 
which  a  Descartes  has  struggled.  I  thank  God  that  in  His 
mercy  he  has  spoken  to  us  in  His  word,  and  that  His  infinite 
spirit  has  given  us  something  that  we  can  rest  upon.  Oh,  my 
friends,  let  us  appreciate  the  Bible  as  an  expression  of  His 
infinite  wisdom  and  glory.  Think  of  nature  above  this  earth; 
think  of  the  stellar  depths  where  countless  systems  of  worlds 
abide,  and  think  of  the  infinite  God  above  them  all.  Kejoice 
again  that  there  was  a  Bethlehem;  that  the  absolute  God  came 
down  among  men,  clothed  with  finite  conditions;  that  the  In¬ 
finite  Ruler  of  all  revealed  Himself  to  mortal  sight  as  He 
went  about  healing  the  sick  and  blessing  little  children. 
"When  I  think  of  our  Earth  as  a  mere  speck  in  the  solar 
system,  as  something  less  than  a  speck  in  the  vast  universe 
about  us,  I  rejoice  that  the  infinite  God  not  only  created  this 
inconceivable  grandeur,  and  unfolded  his  beauty  in  the  dew- 
drop  and  the  flower,  but  that  He  has  given  His  word  that  my 
poor  soul  and  yours  are  safe  in  His  keeping.  The  fires  of  the 
Sun  may  burn  low,  the  vast  system  of  worlds  may  fall  back 
into  chaotic  ruin,  but  God  has  kiudled  a  fire  in  our  brains 
and  in  our  hearts  that  will  live  and  think  and  love  forever. 
May  that  forever  be  in  His  presence. 


III. 


ORIGIN  AND  ANTIQUITY  OF  OUR  RACE. 


When  I  consider  thy  heavens,  the  work  of  thy  fingers,  the  moon  and 
the  stars,  which  thou  hast  ordained  ;  what  is  man,  that  thou  art  mindful 
of  him?  and  the  son  of  man,  that  thou  visitest  him?  For  thou  hast 
made  him  a  little  lower  than  the  angels,  and  hast  crowned  him  with 
glory  and  honor.  —Psalm  viii,  3-5. 

THERE  is  a  wide  difference  of  opinion  among  thoughtful 
men,  and  even  among  clergymen,  as  to  the  best  method 
to  pursue  in  reference  to  questions  that  lap  over  into 
the  region  of  mystery  and  skirt  along  the  borders  of  doubt. 
Some  have  thought  that  it  is  better  for  the  pulpit  to  go  on 
formulating  truth  and  appealing  to  the  heart,  and  let  these 
questions  take  care  of  themselves.  I  have  not  a  word  of  crit¬ 
icism  to  make  on  those  who  think  this  the  better  way.  But, 
living  in  this  thoughtful  age,  and  feeling  that  these  questions 
of  difficulty  and  doubt  meet  us  at  almost  every  turn  in  life, — 
in  the  book  or  in  the  newspaper,  in  conversation,  on  the 
street,  in  the  hotel,  and  in  the  places  of  business, — I  have  felt 
that  I  w’ould  not  be  doing  my  'whole  duty  did  I  not  attempt  to 
deal  with  some  of  them  from  the  pulpit.  I  cannot  feel 
willing  that  the  youth  who  may  listen  to  my  words  for  a 

time  shall  go  out  into  the  world  and  encounter  these  ques- 
3 


34 


The  Origin  and  Testing  of  Man. 


tions  as  something  new,  or  hear  of  them  first  from  the  lips  of 
skeptics.  I  am  convinced  that  these  subjects  will  bear  the 
light  of  criticism,  and  that,  when  the  whole  field  is  gone 
over,  the  highway  of  truth  will  be  cast  up,  and  the  way  to 
piety  and  religion  made  plainer  to  every  honest  mind  and 
heart. 

There  are  some  questions  lying  around  our  subject  that  are 
not  without  difficulty — questions  whose  solution  is  not  yet. 
I  shall  turn  your  thoughts  first  to  some  reflections  concerning 
the  antiquity  of  our  race.  How  long  has  man  existed  upon 
this  little  star  ?  According  to  the  theoiies  that  we  have 
advanced,  our  Earth  is  the  youngest  but  two  in  the  family  of 
eight  worlds  that  move  about  the  Sun.  According  to  those 
theories,  there  was  a  long  time  when  there  was  no  life  on  this, 
planet.  Then  life  began  in  the  simplest  forms  of  vegetable 
and  animal  existence  in  the  waters.  The  higher  forms  were 
carried  to  the  dry  land  as  the  continents  were  lifted  up  from 
the  waters.  How  long  ago  it  was  that  our  Earth  was  stricken 
from  the  Sun,  we  may  not  even  guess,  nor  how  long  it  was 
before  it  was  fitted  to  receive  the  simplest  forms  of  life.  But 
of  this  we  are  quite  certain,  that  man  was  the  last  to  appear 
as  a  living  creature  upon  the  Earth.  The  grass  is  older  than 
man,  and  so  are  the  trees.  The  worm,  the  fish,  the  bird,  the 
beast  of  the  field — all  have  an  ancestry  dating  far  beyond  the 
advent  of  man.  But  one  of  the  difficult  questions  that  science 
has  encountered  is  to  fix  within  reasonably  certain  limits  the 
time  of  man’s  advent.  It  is  evident  that  we  have  to  search 
for  this  in  the  geological  records,  and,  so  far  as  we  may,  read 
the  appearances  and  indications  of  man’s  coming  in  his 


Origin  and  Antiquity  of  Our  Race. 


35 


works  that  have  been  discovered  among  ancient  remains. 
Wherever  we  come  across  anything  that  has  been  shaped  by 
the  hand  of  man — the  rude  implement  of  stone,  or  the  instru¬ 
ment  fashioned  from  the  bone  of  some  animal,  or  wherever 
we  find  evidences  that  a  fire  has  been  kindled — in  all  these 
facts  there  is  proof  that  man  has  existed. 

Geologists,  looking  over  this  field,  tell  us  that  it  seems 
certain  that,  in  the  islands  of  Great  Britain,  and  on  the 
plains  of  France,  Denmark  and  other  countries  of  the  conti¬ 
nent  of  Europe,  primitive  man  existed  along  with  the  cave 
bear,  the  cave  lion,  the  rhinoceros,  and  other  extinct  species 
of  mammalia.  In  the  peat  bogs  of  Denmark,  ten,  twenty  or 
thirty  feet  deep,  we  have,  first,  the  remains  of  forests  of  the 
beech  tree ;  beneath  these  lie  the  remains  of  great  forests  of 
oak,  and  beneath  the  oak  lie  immense  forests  of  pine.  We 
are  told  that  the  pine  and  the  oak  had  disappeared  before  the 
days  of  Julius  Caesar;  and  it  is  estimated  that  great  periods 
of  time  were  required  for  those  oak  forests  to  have  been  over¬ 
laid,  and  beneath  these  again  for  the  pine  forests  to  have  been 
buried.  And  we  are  also  told  that,  down  in  the  pine  forest 
stratum,  there  are  found  the  simplest  stone  implements  of 
human  construction  ;  that  down  in  the  oak  stratum  are  found 
instruments  of  bronze,  and  in  the  beech  instruments  of  iron. 
Now’,  from  this  evidence,  it  is  plain  that  wre  have  to  press 
back  the  period  of  man’s  advent  upon  the  Earth  far  beyond 
any  date  of  which  we  have  written  record. 

You  may  take  the  historical  evidence,  and  as  far  back  as  we 
g  3  we  find  the  existence  of  the  three  present  predominant 
races  of  the  world  —  the  Caucasian,  the  Mongolian  or  Asiatic, 


36  The  Origin  and  Destiny  of  Man. 

and  the  Negro  or  African.  And  we  are  told,  farther,  that, 
three  thousand  or  thirty-five  hundred  years  ago,  there  were 
made  in  Egypt  pictures  of  the  African  race,  reaching  far  back 
even  in  that  remote  day,  and  that  these  paintings  comprise 
all  the  peculiarities  that  distinguish  the  Negro  race  to-day — 
the  thick  lips,  protruding  mouth,  and  retreating  forehead. 
These  pictures  carry  us  back  to  a  period  not  very  remote  from 
the  flood,  which  is  supposed  to  have  occurred  in  the  seven¬ 
teenth  century  from  the  beginning  of  the  Adamic  history. 

Now  the  question  arises,  how  are  we  to  reconcile  these  facts 
with  Biblical  chronology  ?  The  theory  generally  accepted  as 
founded  on  the  Bible  is  that  man  appeared  on  the  Earth 
about  six  thousand  years  ago.  It  seems  impossible  to  put 
aside  these  testimonies  of  science,  and  yet  how  are  we  to  har¬ 
monize  them  with  the  Scriptures  ?  I  will  suggest  two  theories 
that  are  entertained  in  the  thinking  world,  how  extensively  I 
do  not  know.  The  one  I  would  mention  most  prominently  is 
advanced  by  Dr.  McCausland,  a  learned  and  evangelical  divine 
of  the  English  church.  He  suggests  that  the  Adam  of  the 
Bible  was  not  the  first  man.  The  theory  has  been  put  forth  by 
others.  On  first  reading  it,  I  hesitated  before  giving  it  any 
measure  of  acceptance ;  but  the  more  I  reflected  upon  it,  the 
more  willing  I  became  to  see  that  it  was  probably  true.  And 
when  we  read  the  first  chapters  of  the  book  of  Genesis,  we 
find  there  indications  that  Adam  was  not  the  first  man. 
When  Cain  slew  his  brother  Abel,  and  received  his  sentence 
from  the  Lord,  he  complained  that  his  punishment  was 
greater  than  he  could  bear  —  that  all  men,  seeing  him,  would 
slay  him.  He  went  out,  and  married,  and  founded  a  city. 


Origin  and  Antiquity  of  Our  Race. 


37 


And  the  questions  naturally  arise,  Who  was  he  afraid  of,  if 
there  were  no  other  people?  Where  did  he  find  a  wife? 
Where  did  he  find  the  people  to  build  a  city  ?  The  learned 
author,  whose  theory  I  am  suggesting  here,  thinks  Cain  went 
into  China,  for  he  holds  that  the  Mongolian  race  existed 
before  the  Adamic,  and  the  African  before  the  Mongolian. 
And  I  frankly  confess  that  on  other  grounds  this  theory 
seems  not  unreasonable  to  me,  for  I  find  it  difficult  to  believe 
that  from  the  high  Adamic  type  of  life  has  come  the  lower 
Negro  type  —  that  humanity  took  this  backward  direction. 

Another  theory  has  been  advanced  by  S.  Baring  Gould, 
which  to  some  extent  falls  in  with  this.  He  holds  that  the 
first  man  of  the  Bible  was  the  being  who,  in  the  course  of 
ages,  had  come  to  the  point  where  he  was  conscious  of  God, 
where  he  stood  in  the  image  of  God.  Now,  I  do  not  ask  any 
one  to  accept  this  suggestion.  For  myself,  I  should  rather 
accept  some  such  interpretation  than  fly  in  the  face  of  truths 
established  by  science,  or  pick  the  Bible  chronology  to  pieces. 
As  against  either  alternative,  I  prefer  to  believe  that  the  high 
Caucasian  race  —  the  race  that  has  been  progressive  as  far 
back  as  we  have  any  history  —  that  the  advent  of  this  type  of 
man  occurred  at  the  time  and  place  mentioned  in  the  Bible, 
about  six  thousand  years  ago.  But  the  unity  of  the  race? 
Well,  there  may  be  substantial  unity  of  the  race  without  all 
having  sprung  from  the  Adamic  pair.  The  unity  of  the  race 
is  one  thing ;  the  unity  in  Adam  is  quite  another.  I  would 
rather  such  questions  as  these  should  come  to  the  minds  of 
young  people  as  stated  from  the  pulpit,  than  that  they  should 
first  read  of  them  in  the  newspapers,  or  hear  them  lightly 


38 


The  Origin  and  Destiny  of  Man. 


spoken  of  on  steamboat  or  car,  or  learn  of  them  from  some 
skeptic  as  something  that  was  bound  to  upset  the  Bible. 

Another  question  we  now  come  to  is  the  origin  of  the  race. 
We  have  certainly  been  here  six  thousand  years;  how  much 
longer,  we  may  not  say.  The  question  is,  how  did  we  come 
here  ?  Our  theory  in  reference  to  the  creation  was  substan¬ 
tially  this :  That  back  of  all  things  was  an  all-creative  mind — 
a  first  cause,  or  God.  This  all-creative  intelligence  we  believe 
moved  upon  matter,  projecting  its  life-thoughts  into  life- 
forms  ;  moving  along  the  realm  of  the  vegetable  world,  from 
the  simplest  to  the  most  perfect  of  its  forms  ;  moving  along 
the  animal  kingdom,  from  the  lowest  forms  to  the  highest  and 
most  perfect.  Now,  when  we  carry  our  investigations  back 
into  the  realm  of  animal  life,  we  find  the  simplest  radiate 
form,  as  in  the  star-fish,  a  little  burr-like  type  of  life,  hardly 
organized.  We  may  see  above  this  the  molluscan  type, 
which  has  a  bony  structure  on  the  outside,  the  vital  organs 
within  being  connected  therewith.  Just  above  this  is  the 
articulated  form,  having  the  limbs  articulated  and  joined  to 
the  bony  structure.  Next  we  have  the  vertebrate  form  of 
life  —  a  life  built  along  a  spinal  column,  the  limbs  being 
joined  on  this  spinal  or  leading  column.  Th  is  last  form  of 
life  appeared  first  in  the  waters,  then  upon  the  dry  land  in 
the  form  of  the  serpent ;  then  it  was  lifted  up  in  the  quadru¬ 
peds.  Now,  following  this  line  of  thought,  we  find  that  in  the 
vertebrate  form  of  life  in  the  fish,  the  face  is  parallel  with  the 
spinal  column  ;  if  the  fish  were  stood  up  on  end,  it  would  look 
backward.  As  life  came  out  on  the  land,  in  the  reptile,  the 
power  to  elevate  the  head  and  face  was  given.  The  face  took 


Origin  and  Antiquity  of  Our  Race. 


39 


an  angle,  as  in  the  quadrupeds,  and  "was  gradually  raised,  till 
in  man  it  has  attained  the  full  limit  of  progression,  and  is 
parallel  with  the  chest.  We  notice,  too,  this  other  remarka¬ 
ble  fact,  that  what  were  the  fore-legs  in  the  quadruped  have 
become  the  arms  and  hands  in  man,  so  that  man  has  both 
hands  and  legs  and  stands  erect.  Physiologists,  examining 
the  arm  and  hand,  would  find  in  them  the  marks  of  a  superior 
being.  It  is  the  hand  that  swings  the  cradle  and  the  scythe  ; 
that  pushes  the  plane  and  guides  the  saw  ;  that  handles  the 
brush  and  the  chisel,  making  the  canvas  and  the  marble  to 
speak ;  that  smooths  the  hair  of  the  sick,  and  plays  with 
the  curls  of  childhood;  that  wipes  the  dews  from  the  brow 
of  death  ;  that  digs  the  grave,  and  lowers  our  comrade  to  his 
last  rest. 

But  not  alone  is  the  hand  one  of  the  marks  of  man’s  higher 
being.  The  more  finely  finished  features  of  man  are  another. 
Take  the  mouth.  The  month  of  the  fish  is  expressionless. 
In  the  alligator  the  mouth  has  expression,  but  it  is  only  the 
expression  of  destructiveness.  The  dog’s  mouth  has  expres¬ 
sion,  but  it  is  spoiled  by  the  ugly  snarl.  In  the  ox  and  the 
lamb  it  simply  tells  of  gentleness  and  docility.  It  is  only 
when  you  reach  the  mouth  of  man  that  you  find  the  perfect 
feature  and  the  most  varied  expression.  The  lips  of  man  may 
be  eloquent  when  silent.  The  mouth  of  man  may  speak  love 
and  hate,  joy  and  sorrow.  Tho  mouth  of  man  alone  is  known 
to  give  forth  the  merry  sounds  of  laughter.  Or  take  the  eye. 
The  eye  of  the  fish  or  the  insect  is  almost  wholly  destitute  of 
expression.  The  fish  has  a  vacant,  corpse-like  look,  and  not 
what  we  call  expression  in  any  full  sense.  The  eye  of  the 


40 


The  Origin  and  Destiny  of  Man. 


serpent  has  an  expression  of  cunning ;  and  that  of  other  ani¬ 
mals  is  marked  by  some  trait  characteristic  in  a  general  way 
of  the  species  to  which  they  belong.  But  it  is  only  when  you 
reach  the  eye  of  man  that  you  behold  the  soulful  eye,  the  joy¬ 
ful  eye,  the  tearful  eye.  As  the  mouth  of  man  is  the  only 
mouth  that  laughs,  so  the  eye  of  man  is  the  only  eye  that  is 
known  to  weep. 

The  question  may  arise  here  as  to  the  origin  of  man  specif¬ 
ically — whether  by  a  special  act  of  creation,  or  by  gradual 
development  from  some  germ  of  a  lower  type  ;  and  I  may 
surprise  you  by  saying  that  I  don’t  know.  Before  I  reached 
forty,  I  felt  it  a  shame  that  I  could  not  answer  everything 
that  people  asked  me.  But  in  the  last  few  years — and  I  am 
just  past  forty — I  have  reached  a  point  where  I  can  frankly 
say,  in  reference  to  many  things,  “I  don’t  know.”  And  I 
am  approaching  a  point  where  I  can  say  in  reference  to  many 
things,  “I  don’t  care.”  I  have  reached  a  point  where  the 
one  thing  I  want  to  know  is,  what  are  the  facts  in  the  case  ? 
All  I  want  to  know  is  the  simple  truth.  I  do  not  think  the 
Darwinian  theory  has  clearly  made  its  point.  There  are 
many  things  that  point  in  the  direction  of  that  theory,  yet 
we  can  afford  to  wait  till  we  have  more  light.  But  grant 
that  the  Darwinian  theory  is  true,  what  of  it  ?  It  does  not 
affect  religion  one  way  or  the  other.  Is  there  a  God  back  of 
creation  ?  That  is  the  fundamental  question  to  settle,  and 
that,  in  the  minds  of  all  great  thinkers,  I  take  to  be  well 
settled.  Whether  the  human  race  began  away  down  in  the 
lower  structures  of  life,  and  took  millions  of  years  to  reach 
its  present  development,  or  whether  by  some  mechanical  pro- 


Origin  ami  Antiquity  of  Our  Race. 


41 


cess  the  dust  of  the  earth  was  made  up  into  a  clay  man,  so  be 
it.  If  the  creation  of  man  was  a  special  act  of  Omnipotence, 
or  if  the  first  pair  was  evolved  from  some  rudimentary  cell,  so 
be  it.  It  does  not  affect  the  Bible  as  I  understand  it,  and  I 
am  very  certain  it  does  not  affect  the  question  of  piety.  It  is 
just  about  as  reasonable  for  a  man  to  reject  the  Scriptures 
and  renounce  religion  on  any  of  these  grounds,  as  it  would 
be,  if  the  physicia  ns  of  the  city  were  to  meet  to  discuss  some 

question  of  medicine,  for  him  to  say,  “I  cannot  get  religion 

* 

till  this  question  of  quinine  or  strychnine  is  settled.”  And  I 
deem  it  unreasonable  for  Christian  people  to  persecute  Dar¬ 
win  for  following  out  a  line  of  inquiry  and  endeavoring  to 
ascertain  where  it  leads.  I  want  young  people  to  know  that 
these  theories  do  not  affect  the  great  questions  of  spirituality 
and  religion,  and  that  tru  th  will  not  finally  suffer,  nor  can  it 
ever  fall  to  the  ground. 

Now  let  us  take  a  deeper  look  within  the  organism  that  we 
call  the  body — for  that  body  is  only  the  house  in  which  man 
fives,  only  the  tent  in  which  he  dwells,  only  the  casket  which 
holds  the  soul.  What  is  that,  my  friends,  within  this  body 
by  which  I  am  saying  these  things,  by  which  we  think,  by 
which  our  sciences  are  construe  ted  that  enable  us  to  read  the 
records  of  the  Earth  and  measure  the  distances  to  the  stars? 
We  say  it  is  mind,  but  then  what  is  mind  ?  None  of  us 
knowr,  again.  We  can  give  it  one  name  in  English,  and 
another  in  Latin,  and  another  in  German ;  but  that  is  alL 
What  the  mind  of  man  is,  none  of  us  know.  The  nearest  we 
can  approach  to  a  solution  of  the  question  is  to  classify  its 
phenomena,  and  tell  what  it  does.  What  are  some  of  its 


42 


The  Origin  and  Destiny  of  Man. 


powers  ?  In  the  first  place,  it  has  the  acquisitive  power — the 
faculty  of  learning,  of  acquiring.  How  it  does  this,  again,  it 
is  very  hard  to  tell.  Whether  the  eye  goes  out  to  the  flower, 
or  whether  a  picture  of  the  flower  is  brought  to  the  eye,  we 
cannot  certainly  tell.  This  we  do  know  :  we  can  go  out 
through  our  senses  and  learn  of  the  objective  world.  And  it 
is  perfectly  wonderful  how  much  we  can  learn.  How  much 
we  learn  even  in  the  early  days  of  childhood.  Names,  places, 
forms,  dates,  and  ten  thousand  other  things,  are  poured  into 
the  child’s  mind  in  a  few  years. 

The  acquisitive  power  of  the  mind  is  in  itself  a  marvel,  but 
there  is  a  still  greater  marvel.  Not  only  can  we  acquire,  but 
we  have  the  power  of  conserving  what  we  have  acquired. 
How  do  we  do  this?  What  is  that  strange  power  by 
which  we  store  away  what  we  have  learned  ?  Does  what 
we  see  form  a  kind  of  picture,  and  imprint  itself  on  the 
mind?  Does  the  sound  we  hear  possess  some  faculty  of 
registering  itself,  so  that  time  cannot  efface  it?  Again, 
none  of  us  can  tell.  Back  of  these  wonderful  powers  is  a 
greater  mystery  still — the  power  of  reproducing.  How  do  we 
reproduce,  or  call  up,  what  we  have  put  away  ?  You  go  down 
the  street  some  day,  and  a  face  passes  by,  and  you  turn  and 
say,  “I  have  seen  that  face  before.”  You  take  the  hand  in 
yours,  and  look  steadily  in  the  face,  yet  you  cannot  distinctly 
recall  it ;  but  all  at  once  the  mother  throws  her  arms  around 
the  strange  man’s  neck,  and  cries,  “My  son!”  Years  have 
passed  since  she  saw  him.  Millions  of  pictures  and  faces 
have  flitted  before  her  mind ;  but  this  face  stayed  there.  She 
remembers  him  as  a  young  man  of  eighteen  or  twenty — 


Origin  and  Antiquity  of  Our  Race.  43 

radiant  and  hopeful,  with  ruddy  cheeks,  erect  form,  sparkling 
eye  and  raven  hair  ;  now  she  looks  upon  the  bronzed  features 
of  middle  age,  furrowed  with  the  lines  that  time  has  plowed. 
The  picture  has  changed,  but  to  the  eye  of  the  mother  it  is 
just  as  she  saw  it  twenty  years  ago.  How  is  it  done  ?  You 
hear  a  voice  on  the  street  or  in  the  assembly,  and  you  say, 
“I  have  heard  that  voice  before.”  And  you  listen,  and  all  at 
once  you  recognize  a  friend  of  years  gone  by.  How  many 
sounds  have  pressed  upon  the  ear  since  that  \oice  was  last 
heard  !  The  rattle  of  the  cars,  the  rush  of  the  steamboat,  the 
merry  laugh,  the  moan  of  pain,  the  ripple  of  waters,  the  song 
of  birds:,  the  peal  of  thunder — all  these  and  thousands  of  oth¬ 
ers  have  poured  into  the  ear,  but  the  sound  of  that  voice 
heard  twenty  years  ago  lingered  there  still. 

Still  another  wonder  is  the  power  of  the  mind  to  imagine. 
It  can  create  a  world  that  is  ideal,  and  people  it  with  persons 
and  things  that  have  only  an  imaginary  existence.  Literature 
gives  us  examples  of  this.  Take  the  writings  of  Dean  Swift. 
What  a  strange  power,  b}r  which  he  conceived  himself  to  be  in 
a  land  where  the  people  were  less  than  a  child’s  little  finger, 
and  the  heaviest  instruments  less  than  the  finest  cambric 
needle.  What  a  strange  power  by  which  he  could  next  trans¬ 
port  himself  to  the  land  of  Brobdingnag,  where  the  men  were 
taller  than  our  trees,  and  the  grain  heavier  than  our  forests, 
and  where  the  author  comes  near  losing  his  life  by  drowning 
in  a  cream  pitcher.  Or  take  the  speculative  romances  of  Vol¬ 
taire,  in  which  he  conceives  a  people  whose  term  of  life  was 
seven  times  seven  hundred  years,  and  yet  the  philosophers  of 
that  land  were  always  complaining  of  want  of  time.  Many  a 


44 


The  Origin  and  Destiny  of  Man. 


man  is  sick  because  he  thinks  he  is.  Many  a  man  starves  be¬ 
fore  he  gets  to  the  point  where  he  never  starves.  Many  a 
man  is  made  happy  or  miserable  by  imagination.  An  ancient 
chronicle  tells  of  a  certain  king  who  every  night  dreamed  that 
he  was  a  poor  laboring  man.  His  days  were  wretched  because 
of  the  thought  of  these  dreams.  Near  by  the  palace  lived  a 
poor  man  who  dreamed  every  night  that  he  was  a  king,  and 
he  was  happy  because  his  dreams  took  away  the  bitterness  of 
his  daily  toil.  And  the  wise  men  of  that  day  could  not  deter¬ 
mine  whether  these  dreams  brought  the  most  misery  to  the 
king  or  the  most  pleasure  to  the  peasant. 

We  have  the  strange  power  of  reason  —  a  power  which  ena¬ 
bles  us  to  weigh  the  planets  and  measure  their  distance  —  a 
power  by  which  thought  is  thrown  in  the  forms  of  logic,  and 
we  shut  ourselves  up  to  the  necessity  of  conclusions.  Not 
only  is  this  in  our  minds,  but  also  something  that  seems  to 
tell  us  that  mind  is  an  entity  —  a  fact  of  itself  —  something 
in  its  nature  that  enables  us  to  go  to  a  man  in  another  coun¬ 
try,  and  propose  certain  things  to  him,  confident  that  he  will 
see  them  just  as  we  see  them. 

Such  ;  re  some  of  the  marvelous  faculties  that  raise  man 
above  the  brute  creation.  We  concede  to  the  animal  memory 
and  instinct,  but  only  to  man  is  given  the  power  of  a  pro¬ 
gressive  and  improvable  reason.  The  birds  of  our  day  sing 
the  same  songs  that  were  warbled  in  the  garden  of  Eden.  But 
man,  with  his  power  of  speech,  may  write  new  songs  every 
day.  Not  only  have  we  language,  but  we  have  the  printing 
press,  by  which  we  can  register  thought,  so  that  one  genera¬ 
tion  can  begin  where  another  left  off. 


Origin  and  Antiquity  of  Our  Race. 


45 


But  is  there  not  something  more  to  be  said  ?  Is  there  not 
something  in  man  differing  not  only  in  degree,  but  in  quality? 
What  is  this  golden  over-soul  that  we  call  the  spirit — that  makes 
the  thought  of  God  possible — by  which  we  stand  in  the  image 
of  God  —  which  makes  the  divine  real,  and  so  impels  us  to 
do  that  which  is  right  and  restrains  us  from  that  which  is 
wrong  ?  It  is  this,  my  friends,  that  gives  to  man  the  power 
of  surmounting  the  body  ;  it  is  this  that  gives  him  the  crown 
and  glory  of  his  being  —  that  he  is  in  the  image  of  God. 
Something  within  him  enables  him  to  look  outward  and  up¬ 
ward,  and  God  answers  back  ;  something  that  reaches  out  into 
infinity  and  up  to  God.  It  is  this,  above  all,  which  makes 
man  the  lord  of  this  planet,  standing  with  his  feet  on  the 
ground,  his  form  upright,  his  brow  upturned,  his  glance 
heavenward,  his  intellect  unfolded  to  truth,  his  heart  and  mind 
open  to  God  ;  that  being  in  whom  God  and  material  things 
come  together  in  conscious  relation.  Ages  ago,  looking  up 
through  the  clear  sky  of  the  eastern  world,  David  said  :  ‘  ‘When 
I  consider  thy  heavens,  the  work  of  thy  fingers,  the  moon  and 
the  stars,  which  thou  hast  ordained,  what  is  man,  that  thou 
art  mindful  of  him?  and  the  sou  of  man,  that  thou  visitest 
him?  For  thou  hast  made  him  a  little  lower  than  the  angels, 
and  hast  crowned  him  with  glory  and  honor.”  And  from  that 
day  to  this,  gazing  at  the  same  sky,  not  only  with  the  natural 
eye,  but  with  the  rude  telescope  of  Galileo  and  the  long  glass 
of  Herschel,  man  has  looked  into  the  wider  and  deeper  heav¬ 
ens,  and  the  question  comes  back,  what  is  man  ? 

Oh  !  mighty  worlds,  revolving  in  space  !  You  are  old  and 
we  are  young ;  you  plow  on  in  your  restless  course  through 


46 


The  Origin  and  Destiny  of  Man. 


the  resisting  ether;  you  have  millions  of  years  behind  you, 
and  we  are  only  of  yesterday ;  you  have  boundless  strength, 
and  we  are  weak  and  frail — the  consumptive  hacks  away  his 
life  with  his  cough,  and  our  strength  is  as  a  broken  reed. 
But  oh  !  mighty  worlds  above  us  !  we  know  you  ;  do  not  you 
know  us  ?  We  tell  your  names  ;  do  you  call  ours  ?  We  look 
up  to  the  heavens,  and  measure  your  orbits,  and  note  the 
time  when  you  appear  and  disappear;  do  you  know  our  com¬ 
ing  and  our  going  ?  Oh  !  grand  old  Sun  !  it  is  said  there  are 
storms  on  thy  bosom  that  would  wrap  our  wrorld  as  a  pebble  is 
rolled  over  by  the  mighty  deep.  But  there  is  a  mightier 
storm  in  the  human  breast.  Do  you  know'  the  infant’s  smile, 
the  maiden’s  blush,  the  mother’s  joy,  the  mourner’s  tear  ? 
Oh.  no  !  It  is  given  to  man  alone  to  know — to  hope,  to  love, 
to  weep — to  man  only  to  be  forever.  Go  then,  my  friends, 
from  this  temple  of  worship,  and,  planting  your  feet  on  God’s 
great  earth,  say,  “I  am  a  man — I  stand.”  Put  your  hand 
upon  your  brow,  and  say,  “I  am  a  man — I  think.”  Raise 
your  eyes  to  heaven  and  say,  “I  am  a  man — I  love.”  And  go 
and  he  a  man  Adorn  manhood,  adorn  womanhood.  Honor 
your  high  being  by  living  by  a  higher  law,  by  a  higher  truth. 
Let  the  higher  truth  be  your  daily  guide.  Go,  and  be  now 
all  that  you  would  be  in  the  ages  to  come. 


IV. 


THE  PEOBLEM  OF  EVIL. 


Let  no  man  say  when  he  is  tempted,  I  am  tempted  of  God :  for  God 
cannot  be  tempted  with  evil,  neither  tempteth  He  any  man:  but  every 
man  is  tempted ,  when  he  is  drawn  away  of  his  own  lust,  and  enticed. 
Then  when  lust  hath  conceived,  it  bringeth  forth  sin  ;  and  sin,  when  it 
is  finished,  bringeth  forih  death. — James,  i.  13-15. 

FOLLOWING  the  Oriental  method,  we  began  these  dis¬ 
courses  with  thoughts  and  speculations  upon  the  First 
Cause,  or  God ;  from  this  we  traveled  outward  to  His 
works,  as  revealed  in  the  universe ;  and  we  are  enabled  now, 
in  imagination,  to  stand  back  of  what  appears,  and  in  some 
sense  to  follow  the  moving  of  the  Infinite  Mind  as  it  moves 
outward,  taking  shape  in  the  material  world.  Thus  we  may, 
as  it  were,  stand  back  of  the  heavens  and  the  earth,  and  follow 
in  imagination  the  thought  of  an  all-wise  power  as  it  is 
unfolded  in  the  vast  system  of  worlds.  We  may  follow  the 
divine  thought  as  it  takes  shape  in  our  own  little  world — in 
the  tree-thought,  in  the  mountain-thought,  in  the  river- 
thought,  in  the  plant-thought,  in  the  flower-thought,  and, 
finally,  in  its  highest  realization,  the  man-thought.  For  in 
our  conception  of  these  things  we  have  gone  upon  the  suppo¬ 
sition  that  the  thought  of  God  is  back  of  all  that  appears. 


48 


The  Origin  and  Destiny  of  Man. 


Now,  in  our  observations  of  the  great  system  of  worlds,  we 
have  been  impressed  with  the  idea  of  the  presence  of  law,  the 
presence  of  order.  We  have  found  everything  falling  into  its 
place  and  filling  its  place.  Thus,  in  the  system  of  worlds, 
each  seems  naturally  to  have  taken  its  place,  and  to  hold  it 
without  effort  or  jar.  And  the  divine  lawr  unfolds  along  these 
lines  till  the  worlds  are  finished.  Thus  we  have  seen  life  ris¬ 
ing  from  the  simplest  forms  in  the  vegetable  world  to  the 
highest,  and  from  the  simplest  forms  in  the  animal  kingdom 
to  the  highest.  And  we  come  now  to  consider  what  seems  an 
anomaly.  Finding  order  everywhere  else  apparent,  in  the 
vegetable  and  the  lower  animal  realms,  it  is  only  when  we 
come  to  man,  the  highest  in  the  scale  of  being,  that  we  find 
the  first  appearance  of  disorder.  Everything  outside  of  man 
in  the  material  world  is  in  its  place,  and  conforms  to  the  lavr 
of  its  being.  Every  plant,  every  blade  of  grass,  every  tree, 
every  bird,  every  fish,  every  animal,  submits  readily  and 
naturally  to  this  law.  But  when  we  come  to  man,  the  crown¬ 
ing  work  of  creation,  we  are  met  with  the  strange  fact  of 
disorder.  For  when  you  reflect,  that  man  is  the  only  being 
that  seems  to  violate  the  law  of  his  nature;  that  he  is  the 
only  being  who  does  violence  to  his  body  ;  that  he  is  the  only 
one  that  becomes  intoxicated,  the  only  one  that  is  unjust,  the 
only  one  that  is  oppressive — when  we  reflect  upon  this,  we 
approach  a  question  that  has  greatly  puzzled  the  thinking 
world.  How  is  it  that  order  obtains  throughout  nature  all 
the  way  up  to  man,  but  when  the  highest  is  reached,  there 
disorder  appears  ?  And  this  brings  us  to  the  subject  of  tills 
evening’s  meditations — the  Problem  of  Evil. 


The  Problem  of  Evil. 


49 

There  have  been  various  theories  held  by  thinking  men  in 
the  past,  and  there  are  still  in  the  present,  in  reference  to  the 
origin  of  evil.  How  came  it  here  ?  I  will  mention  first  the 
Manichsean  theory,  so  named  by  Manes,  having  its  origin 
toward  the  close  of  the  third  century.  The  author  of  this 
theory  being  a  Persian,  the  theory  itself  is  a  strange  com¬ 
mingling  of  Persian  philosophy  and  the  Christian  religion. 
The  theory  is  substantially  a  dualism,  taking  its  conception 
possibly  from  the  old  Egyptian  thought  that  light  was  good 
and  darkness  evil.  It  holds  that  what  we  call  light  is  in  itself 
good,  and  what  we  call  darkness  i3  in  itself  evil ;  that  these 
two  principles  have  been  engaged  in  a  struggle,  light  pro¬ 
ducing  the  spirit  of  good,  and  darkness  producing  matter,  or 
evil ;  and  that,  in  the  conflict  between  these  two  principles, 
the  good  principle  gained  the  supremacy,  and  yet  the  evil 
principle,  or  darkness,  held  the  field  in  material  things;  and 
that  this  evil  principle  has  ever  been  fighting  the  good. 
Simplifying  the  statement,  the  doctrine  teaches  that  matter 
is  eternal,  and  is  essentially  evil ;  that  God,  or  the  good,  has 
done  the  best  that  was  possible,  but  has  not  been  able  to 
overcome  the  evil  that  is  in  matter,  and  that  the  spirit  of 
man,  being  incarcerated  in  matter,  has  to  share  in  the  evil 
that  belongs  to  matter.  Somewhat  allied  to  this  belief  was 
that  of  the  Ascetics  of  old,  who  inflicted  punishment  on  their 
own  bodies  to  exterminate  the  evil  within  themselves,  believ¬ 
ing  that  it  existed  in  that  portion  of  their  nature  which  was 
material. 

There  is  another  theory  to  account  for  the  origin  of  evil, 
called  the  Pre-existent  theory,  cropping  out  in  the  writtings  of 


50 


The  Origin  and  Destiny  of  Man . 


Plato,  and  philosophers  even  back  of  Plato.  It  has  found,  in 
our  own  day  and  in  our  own  State,  its  ablest  advocate  in  Dr. 
Edward  Beecher,  lately  of  Galesburg.  From  his  struggles 
over  the  fact  of  evil  being  in  the  world,  taking  a  high  view 
of  the  doctrine  of  human  depravity  and  of  the  doctrine  of 
future  punishment,  he  was  unable  to  reconcile  these  two  facts 
with  the  goodness  of  God.  And  he  tells  us  in  his  book  that 
he  was  wandering  on  the  verge  of  darkness  and  despair,  when 
the  happy  conception  of  a  Pre-existent  state  flashed  upon  his 
mind,  and  was  welcomed  as  the  dawn  of  the  day  after  the 
long  night.  The  theory  is  that  all  souls  that  have  lived  in 
bodies  in  this  world  had  a  Pre-existent  state.  In  that  state 
they  were  pure  and  holy.  In  that  state  they  began  their  pro¬ 
bation  with  an  even  start.  But  finally,  from  innate  or  willful 
perversity  or  depravity,  they  fell,  and  having  fallen  as  spirits 
they  are  sent  into  this  world  and  placed  in  human  bodies  for 
the  purpose  of  redemption.  In  short,  this  theory  looks  upon 
this  world  as  a  kind  of  hosp  ital  for  the  universe,  where  all  its 
fallen  spirits  are  sent  for  treatment.  There  are  two  difficulties 
about  this  theory.  In  the  first  place,  it  is  entirely  hypotheti¬ 
cal.  We  have  no  proof  of  a  Pre-existent  state.  None  of  us 
remember  having  been  in  another  world.  But  even  if  we 
accept  it  as  true,  we  are  no  nearer  the  solution  of  the  problem 
we  are  considering.  It  does  not  account  for  the  origin  of  evil. 
It  only  pushes  it  back  —  puts  it  in  some  other  world  instead  of 
on  our  own  planet. 

There  is  another  theory,  called  the  theory  of  the  utility  of 
evil.  This  bolds  that  evil  is  only  another  form  of  good,  or,  if 
not  a  form  of  good,  as  something  that  stands  in  the  place  of 


The  Problem  of  Evil. 


51 


certain  blessings.  The  theory  teaches  that,  had  it  not  been 
for  evil,  the  Divine  Being  would  not  have  descended  to  earth 
and  disclosed  His  love ;  that  to  the  existence  of  evil  we  owe 
man’s  redemption.  I  will  not  pause  to  controvert  this  posi¬ 
tion  long,  but  it  seems  to  me  to  be  a  poor  plight  for  any  the¬ 
ory  to  be  in,  when  it  has  to  assume  evil  as  a  condition  of  good, 
and  when  it  has  to  make  a  divine  disclosure  depend  upon 
some  dark  background  of  sin.  What  should  we  think  of  a 
theory  which  held  that  a  child  must  be  disobedient  and  false 
before  it  can  know  a  mother’s  love  ?  So  far  from  this  the¬ 
ory  being  true,  sin  is  wholly  obscuring  in  its  effects.  This 
same  doctrine  of  utility  goes  further,  maintaining  that  good 
is  revealed  to  us  by  contrast.  As  an  example,  it  is  affirmed 
that,  if  there  were  no  such  thing  as  falsehood,  we  would  not 
have  such  a  striking  conception  of  truth  ;  and  the  theory, 
carried  out,  would  make  it  profitable  to  have  a  saloon  along¬ 
side  of  every  home  —  a  jail,  a  penitentiary  and  a  house  for 
the  fallen  by  the  side  of  every  church,  for  then  we  should 
have  the  good  of  the  home  and  the  church  revealed  to  us  by 
contrast. 

There  is  still  another  theory,  which  I  advance  as  the  one  by 
which  I  shall  stand,  and  that  is  the  theory  that  evil  is  the 
result  of  the  abuse  of  moral  freedom.  That  we  may  under¬ 
stand  ourselves  upon  this  subject,  it  seems  important  for  a 
time  to  consider  the  question  of  freedom  in  itself.  And  it  is 
well  to  cast  out  some  of  the  uncertain  elements  in  the  contro¬ 
versy —  to  cast  out  some  quantities  that  have  no  real  part  in 
it ;  in  other  words,  to  eliminate  some  of  the  grounds  that 
have  been  claimed  for  freedom  that  are  not  tenable.  It  is 


52 


The  Origin  and  Destiny  of  Man. 


well  that  we  retreat  into  narrow  quarters  at  the  outset.  There 
are  many  things  about  which  we  have  no  liberty  at  all.  We  have 
no  choice  whether  we  are  in  the  world  or  not.  We  have  no 
choice  as  to  ancestry,  as  to  social  position,  as  to  the  country 
we  are  born  in.  We  have  no  choice  as  to  inherited  mental 
traits,  or  as  to  moral  traits.  We  may  as  well  at  once  give 
these  all  over.  We  have  no  choice  in  these  conditions.  Com¬ 
ing  stiil  nearer,  and  touching  upon  our  individuality,  we  will 
have  to  yield  certain  points,  and  say  liberty  is  not  found  in 
these.  I  find  no  freedom  in  intellect  or  in  the  senses.  I  have 
no  choice  between  believing  and  not  believing,  as  a  thing 
appears  to  me.  There  is  no  mental  condition  possible 
by  which  I  can  doubt  the  presence  of  these  flowers 
on  my  desk.  I  have  to  believe  they  are  here.  I  have  no 
mental  choice  as  to  believing  certain  things  as  to  these  flowers. 
I  have  to  believe  that  some  are  red  and  others  are  white.  I 
have  to  believe  that  they  are  beautiful,  and  that  they  emit 
certain  odors.  Thus  you  see  that,  in  certain  important  re¬ 
spects,  there  is  no  liberty  in  intellect.  A  man  has  to  believe 
what  he  thinks  is  true  ;  and  if  we  could  all  realize  this,  we 
should  have  vastly  more  charity  for  our  fellow  beings.  Nor 
have  we  any  liberty  in  the  sensibilities  of  our  nature.  If  1 
taste  a  thing,  and  it  seems  to  me  sour,  I  have  no  liberty  but 
to  pronounce  it  sour.  Seeing  the  beauty  and  inhaling  the 
fragrance  of  these  flowers,  I  have  no  choice  but  to  pronounce 
them  beautiful  and  fragrant. 

But  let  us  look  a  little  further,  and  see  if  there  is  not  some¬ 
thing  about  us  that  we  may  truly  call  a  voluntary  power,  and 
if  we  do  not  have  a  power  of  choosing,  of  moving  or  not  mov- 


The  Problem  of  Evil. 


53 


mg  in  certain  directions,  and  if  this  power  does  not  come  into 
play  in  reference  to  moral  questions  as  well  as  others.  As  an 
example,  I  have  the  power  to  pick  up  this  vase  of  flowers  and 
dash  it  to  the  floor.  Now  if  it  "be  proved  as  well  that  I  have 
the  liberty  to  violate  or  not  to  violate  the  law  of  right,  then 
we  reach  the  moral  question  on  which  the  argument  turns, 
which  is  whether  we  have  this  self-determining  power.  If  we 
have,  we  have  responsibility  ;  if  we  have,  we  are  upon  the 
threshold  of  solving  the  problem  of  evil.  If  we  have  not, 
then,  wherever  evil  or  sin  may  be,  it  cannot  be  laid  at  man’s 
door  ;  he  is  only  a  machine.  Let  us  determine  now  what  we 
mean  when  we  speak  of  liberty  ;  and  here  I  have  to  differ 
from  some  of  the  schools  of  the  present  century.  The  defini¬ 
tion  given  of  liberty  by  some  is  the  power  to  do  as  you  please. 
This  is  very  beautiful  so  long  as  we  do  not  please  to  do  what 
we  cannot.  But  when  you  run  it  back,  it  only  means  that  you 
can  do  as  you  please,  but  that  you  can  only  “please  ”  to  do 
in  a  certain  way.  Now  we  hold  that  liberty  carries  with  it 
more  than  this  ;  that  man  has  power  over  his  pleasing,  over 
his  choosing,  power  to,  or  from  ;  that  he  is  the  determiner, 
and  not  the  determined.  And  we  claim  still  further,  that 
there  is  something  within  us  that  is  divine  ;  something  that 
has  the  power  of  moving  contrary  to  circumstances,  of  sur¬ 
mounting  conditions,  of  rising  in  its  immortal  supremacy  to 
determine  certain  courses  of  conduct.  "We  may  grant  that 
certain  ages  have  a  tendency  to  p^odue  peculiar  types  of  char¬ 
acter.  A  period  of  war  is  favorable  to  the  production  of 
patriots  ;  a  period  when  beauty  is  the  universal  theme  will 
develop  its  artists  and  its  poets.  Circumstances,  too,  may 


54 


The  Origin  and  Destiny  of  Man. 


have  great  weight  in  controlling  the  destiny  of  individuals.  A 
child  surrounded  by  bad  influences  has  great  difficulty  in  ris¬ 
ing  out  of  them.  But  I  claim  for  the  God-given  spirit  of 
man  that  it  has  the  power  to  rise  above  evil  circumstances ; 
that  it  has  the  power  to  control  conditions.  It  is  the  only 
doctrine  that  is  safe  in  its  broadest  sense  to  teach  the  young. 
You  teach  that  man  is  the  creature  of  circumstances,  and  if 
he  lives  in  a  listless  age  he  will  be  listless,  and  if  in  a  vicious 
age  he  will  be  vicious.  You  teach  the  people  that  they  must 
simply  yield  themselves  to  the  influences  around  them  and  be 
borne  along  by  the  current,  and  you  destroy  the  greatest  mo¬ 
tive  and  inspiration  to  self-helpfulness.  Certainly,  if  man  be 
responsible,  he  must  have  power  —  power  to  do,  power  not  to 
do.  And  here  I  think  we  approach  the  best  answer  that  can 
be  given  to  this  problem  of  evil.  Within  the  possibilities  of 
truth  and  general  goodness,  man  may  live  up  to  these  attri¬ 
butes,  and  be  virtuous  and  holy;  or  he  may  turn  aside  and  fall. 

If  I  am  correct  in  my  statements  thus  far,  it  does  not  meet 
the  argument  to  say  that  God  permitted  evil  in  this  world.  If 
my  premises  are  right,  God  could  not  prevent  evil  from  ori¬ 
ginating  and  existing  here.  It  is  not  in  the  power  of  Om¬ 
nipotence  to  make  a  being  free  and  at  the  same  time  not  free. 
God  could  not  prevent  evil  from  coming  into  this  world  after 
giving  man  the  pow’er  to  choose  between  good  and  evil.  I 
stand  squarely  by  the  proposition  that  having  made  man  free, 
He  could  not  prevent  man  from  falling  unless  He  destroyed 
the  nature  of  man.  He  may  create  the  vast  worlds  about 
us,  and  station  them  in  their  places  ;  He  may  create  these 
lovely  flowers  to  gratify  our  sense  of  the  beautiful ;  He  may 


The  Problem  of  Evil . 


o5 

cause  great  forests  to  wave,  and  mighty  rivers  to  flow  on  to 
their  home  in  the  great  deep  —  but  when  He  makes  a  free  be¬ 
ing,  that  being  must  be  free.  If  He  puts  His  hand  on  that 
being,  and  says  he  shall  not  do  wrong,  He  unmakes  him  ;  the 
being  ceases  to  be  free,  and  ceasing  to  be  free,  he  eeases  to  be 
a  man.  This  is  the  clearest  solution  I  can  give  of  the  prob¬ 
lem  of  evil.  It  is  the  abuse  of  moral  freedom. 

We  may  accompany  these  thoughts  with  some  reflections  on 
man’s  first  appearance  —  the  first  appearance  of  our  Adamic 
race.  And  here  we  are  met  by  that  strange  and  beautiful  story 
of  the  garden  of  Elen,  and  of  the  appearance  of  Adam  and 
Eve,  and  the  strange  account  of  their  fall.  What  are  we  to 
make  of  this  in  modern  thought  and  language  ?  This  early 
story  may  be  a  kind  of  poem,  a  song  sung  to  the  childhood 
of  our  race.  It  abounds  in  symbolism,  and  may  be  interpret¬ 
ed  as  a  sort  of  teaching  by  means  of  object  lessons.  I  think 
it  is  Dr.  Bushnell,  one  of  the  clearest  thinkers  of  this  or  any 
age,  who  says,  in  substance,  that  in  that  time,  when  man 
had  but  little  power  to  think,  or  to  s'udy  cause  and  effect, 
except  by  means  of  objective  lessons,  it  may  easily  fall  out 
that  the  story  of  the  garden  of  Eden  would  take  this  shape  : 
Law  would  be  represented  by  the  tree  ;  the  violation  of  law, 
or  rather  the  precepts  of  law,  by  its  fruit  ;  evil,  or  tempta¬ 
tion,  would  be  represented  in  the  form  of  the  serpent.  I 
suggest  this  interpretation  to  you.  Or,  if  you  choose,  you 
may  take  the  same  view  that  I  used  to.  You  may  look  at  the 
garden  of  Eden  as  liko  a  garden  of  our  time,  and  regard  the 
tempter  as  a  literal  seipent.  Dr.  Adam  Clarke,  of  cur  own 
church,  makes  the  serpent  an  ourang-outang ;  and  after  that, 


56 


The  Origin  and  Destiny  of  Man. 


we  are  at  liberty  to  make  it  anything  we  choose.  I  am  dis¬ 
posed  to  put  some  such  construction  on  it  as  Dr.  Bushnell 
does,  and  to  think  that  the  law  under  which  Adam  and  Eve 
were  placed  was  symbolized  by  the  tree,  and  that  the  tempta¬ 
tion  took  another  thought,  the  idea  of  the  serpent. 

Or  you  may  take  the  theory  of  Dr.  James  Freeman  Clarke, 
of  Boston,  one  of  the  most  candid,  liberal  and  scholarly 
writers  of  our  time.  He  suggests  that  the  four  actors  in  the 
drama  are  found  within  man  himself.  The  strong  or  mascu¬ 
line  power  within  us  is  Adam  ;  the  principle  of  gentleness  and 
sympathy,  the  soul  principle,  is  Eve ;  the  human  appetites  or 
jmssions  are  represented  by  the  serpent,  or  temptation.  lie 
takes  conscience,  that  within  us  which  recognizes  and  speaks 
to  God,  and  makes  it  the  voice  of  God  heard  in  the  garden. 
We  cannot  say  which  of  these  interpretations  gathers  to  itself 
the  whole  truth.  Our  first  parents,  while  they  were  pure, 
could  not  in  the  nature  of  things  be  holy  in  an  active  sense  of 
the  term.  All  that  God  could  do  would  be  to  give  them  the 
conditions  of  this.  The  fact  of  becoming  actively  holy — 
that  was  something  that  fell  to  their  share,  and  was  not  the 
work  of  God.  It  is  instructive  to  notice  that  their  fall  came 
by  the  way  of  the  intellect,  and  the  desires,  and  the  passions. 
Temptation  was  arcused  by  their  appetites  or  desires,  and 
they  yielded  and  fell. 

In  relation  to  the  Adamic  transgression,  I  must  contend 
against  the  doctrine  that  wTe  inherit  guilt  because  there  was  sin 
in  the  first  pair.  We  may  inherit  a  fallen  nature,  and  may 
endure  great  suffering  on  that  account.  We  are  so  related  to 
our  ancestors  that  our  life  flows  down  to  us  through  them. 


The  Problem  of  Evil. 


57 

Whatever  of  violence  they  have  done  to  their  natures  will  be 
visited  upon  us.  And  as  they  have  brought  upon  us  this 
physical  weakness,  this  mental  and  spiritual  weakness,  it  is  in 
the  law  of  nature  that  we,  their  descendants,  should  be  born 
into  this  world  in  their  image.  And  thus  it  is  said  that  while 
Adam  was  made  in  the  image  of  God,  he  begot  a  son  in  his 
own  likeness.  Now  the  question  comes  up  as  to  how  far  we 
are  depraved  and  to  what  extent  must  we  share  the  responsi¬ 
bility  of  those  from  whom  we  have  descended  ?  There  can 
be  no  blame  laid  at  my  door,  or  at  your  door,  that  we  belong 
to  a  fallen  race.  The  man  who  sins,  and  he  only,  is  a  sinner. 
Vie  might  just  as  well  blame  the  child  who  had  been  cursed 
with  the  depraved  appetite  of  a  drunken  father.  The  churches 
probably  have  gone  too  far  in  both  directions.  For  us  to  state 
that  the  human  family  is  in  no  sense  depraved,  is  not  a  full 
statement  of  the  caee  ;  it  does  not  fill  out  the  measure  of 
human  experience.  We  are  diseased  —  we  are  fallen  ;  but  it 
is  as  great  a  mistake  to  make  depravity  such  a  preponderating 
force  in  human  life  as  to  say  that  there  is  no  good  in  man  ; 
that  he  is  wholly  prostrate,  wholly  inclined  to  evil ;  that,  like 
a  rotten  stick,  there  is  no  life  at  all  in  him.  I  find  our  de¬ 
pravity  to  be  in  this,  that  conscience  is  overcome  by  the  flesh, 
by  appetite  and  passion,  but  it  is  still  true  to  the  right,  but 
has  not  power  to  rule.  Our  intellects  are  clouded  and  our 
bodies  enfeebled  because  of  the  sins  of  our  ancestors.  We 
need  not  only  education,  but  salvation.  As  to  the  fact  of  sin 
in  itself,  I  cannot  believe  that  man  will  be  punished  for  be¬ 
longing  to  a  fallen  race.  You  and  I  cannot  be  deemed  guilty 
for  being  that  which  it  was  not  in  our  power  not  to  be.  Our 


58 


The  Origin  and  Destiny  of  Man . 


guilt  will  be  in  not  using  the  po  wer  we  have  for  good,  and  in 
rejecting  the  offer  of  help,  the  gift  of  God  in  His  Son. 

In  a  sense,  we  all  began,  or  are  beginning,  in  some  garden 
of  Eden.  There  was  a  time  in  childhood  days  when  we  came 
to  God  clothed  in  the  garb  of  innocence.  There  was  a  time 
when  the  consciousness  of  evil  first  smote  upon  our  hearts. 
There  was  a  time  when  the  voice  of  God  spake  unto  us  and 
said,  “  Where  art  thou  ?  ”  And  there  was  a  time  when  we 
seemed  to  hide  ourselves  from  God,  when  the  flaming  sword 
seemed  raised  above  us.  But  I  am  glad  for  you  and  for  me 
that  if  we  had  our  trial  and  our  fall,  there  is  a  Bethlehem,  a 
manger,  a  Gethsemane  and  a  Calvary  ;  that  out  of  this  world 
of  sin  we  may  ascend  to  realms  of  purity  and  dwell  with  God  ; 
that  out  of  this  world  of  sorrow  and  death  we  may  mount  the 
shining  way,  and  live  forever  in  His  presence.  Thus  I  have 
tried,  in  the  heated  atmosphere  of  this  crowded  room,  to  go 
over  the  troubled  question  of  the  origin  of  evil.  It  is  inward, 
and  your  duty  and  mine  is  to  see  that  we  do  not  add  to  that 
evil ;  that  we  stand  strong  in  the  presence  of  temptation  ;  that 
we  exemplify  strength  of  character  ;  that  we  give  no  impulse 
to  sin  that  shall  go  down  to  those  who  shall  come  after  us  ;  and 
to  send  every  possible  impulse  of  good  down  to  the  genera¬ 
tions  yet  unborn. 


V. 


THE  GOVERNMENT  OF  GOD. 


For  unto  us  a  child  is  born,  unto  us  a  son  is  given  :  and  the  govern¬ 
ment  shall  be  upon  his  shoulder :  and  his  name  shall  be  called  Won¬ 
derful,  Counsellor,  The  mighty  God,  The  everlasting  Father,  The 
Prince  of  Peace.  Of  the  increase  of  his  government  and  peace  there 
shall  be  no  end,  upon  the  throne  of  David,  and  upon  his  kingdom,  to 
order  it,  and  to  establish  it  with  judgment  and  with  justice  from  hence¬ 
forth  even  for  ever.  The  zeal  of  the  Lord  of  hosts  will  perform  this. — 
Isaiah,  ix,  7-8. 

To  wit,  that  God  was  in  Christ,  reconciling  the  world  unto  himself, 
not  imputing  their  trespasses  unto  them  ;  and  hath  committed  unto  us 
the  word  of  reconciliation.  Now  then  we  are  ambassadors  for  Christ, 
as  though  God  did  beseech  you  by  us  :  we  pray  you  in  Christ's  stead, 
be  ye  reconciled  to  God. — Second  Corinthians,  v,  19-20. 

FROM  the  weariness  and  over-work  of  this  material, 
money-loving  age,  comes  up  a  demand  for  a  light,  fasci¬ 
nating,  restful  literature,  and  for  easy  and  sensational 
sermonizing.  I  am  convinced,  however,  that  the  needs  of 
the  age  are  for  more  thorough,  patient  and  persistent  study, 
for  deeper  and  profounder  convictions  on  the  questions  of 
truth  and  morality.  I  am  glad  that  you  have  fallen  in  with 
my  own  lines  of  thinking  on  this  subject,  and  are  so  patiently 
and  continuously  listening  to  these  discourses,  which  must,  in 
the  nature  of  the  case,  be  something  of  a  tax  upon  the  think¬ 
ing  powers.  I  come  to-night  to  speak  to  you  upon  the 


60 


The  Origin  and  Destiny  of  Man. 


Government  of  God.  Everywhere  in  the  material  world  we 
find  scientists  discussing  questions  of  law — telling  us  that  the 
domain  of  law  is  all-inclusive — that  it  binds  alike  the  atom 
and  the  universe.  And  everywhere  in  the  Bible  we  find  the 
writers  discussing  the  other  part  of  the  subject — talking  of 
questions  that  belong  to  the  moral  realm — speaking  of  moral 
law,  or  the  government  of  God.  Now  what  are  w7e  to  think 
of  these  things — of  this  reign  of  law  in  material  things — 
of  this  presence  of  law  in  the  moral  world  ?  I  suppose  that 
what  we  call  the  laws  of  the  material  world  are  simply  the 
expressions  of  the  Divine  "Will  in  reference  to  material  things. 
When  God  has  imposed  a  law  of  gravity,  or  the  law  of  the 
vital  affinities,  or  any  other  law  of  the  natural  world,  it  is 
simply  an  expression  of  the  Divine  Mind  how  these  things 
should  act.  And,  therefore,  when  we  speak  of  moral  law,  we 
are  only  speaking  of  the  same  Divine  Mind  promulging  its 
thoughts  as  laws  that  should  regulate  living  and  being  and 
acting — laws  that  should  prescribe  the  conduct  of  a  free 
being.  I  think,  when  we  come  to  reflect  on  this,  and  put  the 
one  over  against  the  other,  we  will  be  able  to  trace  the  analo¬ 
gies  between  them,  and  to  see  that  the  Divine  Will  is  not 
limited  in  its  sway,  but  is  equally  present,  though  not  equally 
effective,  everywhere. 

Imagine,  if  you  can,  a  state  of  society  where  the  law  of 
right  would  be  supreme,  where  there  would  be  no  need  of 
organized  or  constituted  government ;  and,  if  it  is  possible, 
conceive  a  community  of  free  beings  so  incorporating  the 
love  of  truth  and  justice  into  their  very  natures  that  through 
all  their  life  they  yield  a  cheerful  and  willing  obedience  to 


The  Government  of  God. 


61 


the  law  of  light,  without  any  such  thing  as  organized  govern¬ 
ment.  Possibly  the  nearest  illustration  we  can  get  of  such  a 
state  of  society  may  be  found  in  the  example  of  a  family, 
founded  in  love  and  living  in  love,  where  the  law  of  right  and 
duty  is  supreme.  Such  a  family  would  move  on  in  its  sweet 
life  if  every  statute  were  stricken  from  the  books.  The  law 
of  love  rules  them.  They  live  under  that  law.  Each  member 
of  the  family  is  a  law  unto  himself.  I  think  it  is  possible  to 
conceive  that  back  of  what  we  call  instituted  government  is 
the  principle  of  right,  and  that  but  for  this  principle  of  right 
it  would  not  be  possible  for  the  law  itself  to  exist.  As  an 
illustration  of  this  again,  take  the  constitution,  the  govern¬ 
ment  and  laws  of  this  country.  The  principles  underlying 
them  are  back  of  and  independent  of  them.  They  were  not 
created  by  the  organization  of  the  government.  They  them¬ 
selves  created  the  government.  Thus,  if  all  our  statutes 
guaranteeing  liberty  were  stricken  down,  the  principle  of 
liberty  would  still  be  in  existence.  If  all  the  statutes  in 
reference  to  honesty  and  justice  and  truth  were  stricken  from 
the  books,  or  even  from  this  Book  of  Books,  the  principles 
themselves  would  still  remain. 

I  think  it  important  that  the  young  have  their  attention 
drawn  to  this  fact  that  law  is  not  necessarily  an  arbitrary 
thing.  What  we  call  right  is  something  that  exists  back  of 
the  enactments  of  law,  and  only  seeks  to  express  itself 
through  them.  It  is  something  that  seems  to  have  an  exist¬ 
ence  in  the  nature  of  things,  and  as  such  it  seems  to  be 
necessary.  We  must  stand  in  certain  relations  to  the  Author 
of  our  being.  Out  of  these  relations  arise  certain  obliga- 


62  The  Origin  and  Destiny  of  Man . 

tions.  We  cannot  exist  in  the  social  relation  without  certain 
obligations  arising  out  of  that  condition.  What  we  call  right, 
then,  having  its  existence  in  the  relation  of  things,  is  some¬ 
thing  back  of  the  law  instituted  to  express  it. 

And  here  I  deem  it  not  irreverent  to  ask  some  questions  in 
reference  to  the  government  of  God.  I  think  it  not  irrev¬ 
erent  for  us  to  look  the  whole  subject  squarely  in  the  face, 
and  see  whether  the  government  of  God,  which  challenges  our 
acceptance  and  loyalty,  is  itself  in  harmony  with  everlasting 
truth  and  right.  For  the  principle  of  right  works  both  ways. 
It  obligates  God  as  well  as  man.  It  obligates  God  infinitely 
more  than  it  obligates  man,  just  in  the  ratio  that  God  is 
infinitely  greater  than  man.  I  think  it  not  irreverent  to  say 
that  were  it  possible  for  the  Infinite  Being  to  violate  the 
everlasting  law  of  right,  He  would  be  not  only  the  most 
infinite  sinner  in  the  universe,  but  the  most  infinite  sufferer. 
Some  may  think  this  is  irreverent.  I  claim  to  have  reverence 
for  the  Supreme  One,  reverence  for  truth,  reverence  for 
right.  But  there  comes  a  time  in  human  thought  when  we 
may  demand  answers  to  these  questions.  God  challenges  us 
to  the  inquiry  by  Ezekiel.  Away  back  in  the  spring-time  of 
our  race,  God  said  through  him  :  “Are  not  my  ways  equal  ? 
Are  not  your  ways  unequal?”  God  wanted  the  principles 
of  His  government  to  be  judged  by  the  same  rules  that  were 
applied  to  all  questions  of  right.  Through  Isaiah  He  invited 
the  people  to  come  and  reason  on  these  questions,  and  our 
Saviour  has  commanded  us  to  judge  for  ourselves  and  see 
if  the  great  moral  principles  He  announced  are  not  founded 
in  truth  and  righteousness. 


The  Government  of  God. 


63 


There  may  be  a  time  in  despotic  ages  when  the  thought  of 
a  king  is  so  great  that  the  people  will  simply  bow  down  under 
it,  and  there  will  be  unquestioning  submission  to  the  edicts 
of  kingly  government.  But  as  intelligence  spreads,  and  the 
people  become  in  a  sense  free,  they  ask  whether  the  law  is  just 
— whether  the  king  is  right,  and  they  begin  to  call  the  gov¬ 
ernment  to  account  and  to  inquire  into  its  acts.  And  there 
may  be  a  time  in  the  life  of  individuals  when  the  thought  of 
God  is  so  supreme  that  they  would  think  it  irreverent  to  ask 
if  these  things  are  true,  if  these  things  required  are  right. 
And  there  has  been  a  large  school  of  theology  in  the  world, 
extending  over  hundreds  of  years,  that  has  taught  and  preached 
the  doctrine  of  the  absolute  slavery  of  the  human  mind, 
the  absolute  subjection  of  human  reason.  This  school  has 
taught  a  religion  that  exalts  God  and  debases  man  ;  it  makes 
man  a  worm  for  the  Almighty  to  spit  upon  and  trample  in  the 
dust.  I  protest  against  such  doctrines  as  needlessly  humiliat¬ 
ing  and  degrading  to  man  and  as  dishonoring  to  God.  I  hold 
that  we  have  rights,  that  this  question  is  not  wholly  a  one¬ 
sided  question.  There  are  things  due  from  the  Almighty 
Ruler  of  this  universe  to  mankind,  just  as  there  are  things 
due  from  mankind  back  to  the  Ruler  of  this  universe.  And  I 
am  very  free  to  say  to  you  that  if  I  believed  that  the  Bible 
taught  certain  things  as  some  schools  have  insisted,  I  would 
stand  to  my  reason  and  moral  convictions,  and  step  away  from 
that  Bible.  If  I  believed  it  made  out  the  Supreme  Being  to 
be  what  some  systems  teach,  I  confess  to  you  that  in  my  heart 
I  never  could  love  Him.  In  my  inner  heart,  I  can  only  detest 
tyranny.  The  moment  you  charge  anything  to  the  Almighty 


64 


The  Origin  and  Destiny  of  Man. 


that  is  wrong,  that  is  cruel,  that  is  in  violation  of  the  everlast¬ 
ing  principles  of  right,  that  moment  you  negate  the  thought 
of  God  ;  you  make  Him  an  impossible  being.  The  moment 
we  take  the  Divine  out  of  the  pale  of  mercy  and  justice,  we 
make  the  thought  of  a  loving  and  all-wise  Father  impossible. 
And  hence  I  feel  that  I  would  honor  human  reason  and  honor 
God  in  thus  standing  up  for  the  righteousness  of  His  law,  and 
vindicating  the  glory  of  His  character.  He  does  nothing  that 
by  any  possibility  can  be  construed  to  be  wrong.  He  must 
stand  forever  in  infinite  truth  and  goodness.  Suppose,  my 
friends,  some  one  should  come  to  you  and  say,  “Have  you 
heard  that  terrible  story  about  your  father  ?”  “  No  ;  what  is 

it?”  “Why,  he  concluded  that  three  babes  at  home  were 
too  many,  and  took  a  couple  of  them  and  drowned  them — not 
that  he  thought  it  right,  but  it  pleased  him  to  do  so.”  What 
would  be  your  duty  in  that  case?  To  say,  “I  guess  it  is 
right,  if  father  did  it  ?”  Or  would  it  not  be  your  duty  as  a 
good  son,  who  defends  his  father  when  absent,  to  say,  “  There 
is  some  mistake  about  this  ;  my  father  would  not  do  that — he 
could  not  do  such  a  thing  ”  ?  So  I  feel  it  is  honoring  God 
and  humanity,  when  some  one  comes  along  saying  that  with¬ 
out  any  reason,  but  for  His  own  glory,  the  Almighty  Father 
has  determined  to  give  a  certain  part  of  His  children  over  to 
endless  misery,  to  say,  “  My  Father  cannot  do  that  ;  He  did 
not  do  it ;  it  is  impossible  that  He  should  do  it.  ”  I  am  not  sur¬ 
prised  that  the  world  is  full  of  infidelity  when  I  come  to  think 
of  the  things  that  have  been  put  forth  as  God’s  truth,  and 
which  men,  on  pain  of  heresy,  have  been  compelled  to  accept. 
And  the  sooner  we  look  over  this  field,  and  see  that  God  is 


The  Government  of  God. 


65 


truth  and  right,  and  that  His  government  is  founded  in  truth 
and  righteousness  forever,  the  better  it  will  be  for  mankind. 
Whatever  systems  have  to  fall,  let  God’s  truth  stand,  and  His 
character  be  vindicated. 

As  stated  in  our  last  discourse,  the  creation  of  a  free  being 
involved  the  liability  to  wrong,  the  liability  to  sin.  And,  in 
the  case  of  our  world,  that  which  was  potential  has  become 
actual.  Not  only  Adam  and  Eve  fell,  but  every  human  being 
has  fallen  since.  Let  us  look  at  the  government  of  God  in 
the  light  of  this  fact.  Let  us  inquire,  in  the  first  place,  if  we 
can  throw  ourselves  back  in  imagination  into  such  a  world, 
what  would  be  the  effect  of  the  first  introduction  of  wrong 
among  a  pure  and  sinless  people.  Let  us  imagine  a  people 
who  lived  simply  under  a  law  of  right.  What  would  be  the 
effect  if  some  one  broke  that  law  ?  We  can  hardly  realize 
what  we  are  talking  about  here,  from  the  fact  that  we  have 
become  so  accustomed  to  sin  in  our  world  that  we  scarcely 
notice  its  presence.  It  is  only  the  great  sins  that  arouse  our 
attention.  The  ordinary  failings  of  humanity  are  every-day 
occurrences.  What  would  be  the  startling  effect  in  a  family 
that  had  never  known  a  wrong  act  or  an  unkind  word — what 
would  be  the  effect  if  one  of  its  members  should  turn  around 
and  violate  the  law  of  love  and  right  under  wThich  it  has  been 
living?  It  would  first  produce  terror  and  disorder.  When 
the  law  is  overborne,  there  must  be  disorder  in  that  home. 
What  was  the  feeling  in  our  land  when  Fort  Sumter  was  fired 
upon  ?  It  was  that  the  nation  was  in  peril.  What  would  be 
the  effect  upon  the  one  that  sins  under  the  conditions  we  have 

indicated  ?  Possibly  to  set  up  a  tendency  to  wrong-doing ;  to 
5 


66 


The  Origin  and  Destiny  cf  Man. 


perpetuate  that  tendency,  strengthen  it  by  habit,  and  hand  it 
down  by  the  law  of  descent.  So  that  you  can  see  if  we  were 
in  a  world  that  had  never  known  wrong,  alarm  and  confusion 
would  run  through  all  branches  of  society  upon  the  first 
introduction  of  sin.  We  should  expect  to  see  it  repeated 
indefinitely.  What  would  be  the  duty  of  the  government,  or 
of  the  father  of  the  family,  under  such  circumstances?  In 
either  case  the  highest  authority  should  come  forth  and  make 
its  power  felt  both  for  the  sinning  and  the  unsinning.  And, 
if  we  admit  the  existence  of  a  Supreme  Being ;  if  we  admit 
the  existence  of  His  rule  on  earth,  we  must  feel  that  when 
man  fell,  the  Supreme  Buler  would  be  impelled  to  come  forth 
and  set  up  authority,  to  come  forth  and  promulge  law,  to 
come  forth  and  organize  government.  And  this  is  just  what 
God  is  represented  in  the  scriptures  as  doing.  Our  race  began 
life  under  the  law  of  right ;  now  comes  the  fact  of  disorder  in 
the  world  ;  then  comes  forth  the  Divine  Law.  I  am  making 
these  remarks  thus  elaborately  that  you  may  see  that  there  is 
something  back  of  this  thing  of  the  government  of  God.  We 
are  not  looking  at  shadows  or  fleeting  phantoms.  The  law 
that  the  Supreme  Being  would  promulge  is  the  law  of  ever¬ 
lasting  right. 

We  know  what  the  law  is  that  comes  to  us  from  Mount 
Sinai.  Let  us  see  howT  it  accords  with  our  ideas  of  the  good 
of  humanity.  There  are  two  sets  of  tables  in  this  book — one 
of  which  applies  to  man’s  relations  to  God,  and  the  other  to 
his  relations  with  his  fellow  beings.  The  first  commandment 
is  :  “  Thou  shall  have  no  other  gods  before  me.”  What  is  the 
import  of  this  ?  It  rests  upon  the  simple  fact  that  there  is 


The  Government  of  God. 


67 


but  one  God.  It  was  shaped  in  that  day  when  people,  turn¬ 
ing  away  from  the  love  of  God,  had  come  to  set  up  false 
deities,  and  to  worship  the  planets,  birds,  animals,  and  even 
sticks  and  stones.  Hence  arose  the  necessity  for  this  first 
great  commandment.  It  is  essential  to  the  harmony  of  this 
universe.  Under  the  old  pagan  systems,  there  might  be  as 
many  gods  as  the  people  chose  to  worship,  but  there  could 
be  no  Supreme  Being  of  all-commanding  presence  and  power. 
And  God  placed  in  the  archway  of  human  thought  this  key¬ 
stone  of  Divine  law —  “  Thou  shalt  have  no  other  gods  before 
me.” 

The  second  commandment  is  :  “  Thou  shalt  not  make  unto 
thee  any  graven  image ,  or  any  likeness  of  anything  that  is  in 
heaven  above ,  or  that  is  in  the  earth  beneath ,  or  that  is  in  the 
water  under  the  earth.  Thou  shalt  not  bow  down  thyself  to 
them ,  nor  serve  them.”  What  is  the  reason  of  this?  It  i > 
justified  by  the  well-known  fact  that  man  assimilates  to  that 
which  he  worships.  When  he  bows  down  before  images  of 
wood  or  stone,  or  before  any  beast,  he  degrades  himself  to  the 
level  of  that  which  he  adores.  It  is  only  as  the  Supreme 
Being  is  supreme  in  human  thought  that  the  best  conditions 
for  human  advancement  are  possible.  I  would  like,  as  a  mat¬ 
ter  of  curiosity,  to  see  what,  if  such  a  state  of  facts  were 
possible,  would  be  the  effect  of  the  enlightened  ideas  we  have 
of  the  extent  of  the  universe,  on  the  religion  of  the  ancient 
Greeks  or  Romans.  How  would  they  represent  a  being  capa¬ 
ble  of  making  and  upholding  this  vast  universe  ?  It  would 
be  interesting  to  see  some  one  try  to  make  an  idol  in  our  time. 
It  would  be  impossible,  with  any  such  notion  of  the  Deity  as  we 


68 


The  Origin  and  Destiny  of  Man. 


entertain.  And  God  says,  Do  not  attempt  it;  you  cannot  do  it. 

The  government  of  God  then  says  :  “  Thou  shalt  not  take 
the  name  of  the  Lord  thy  God  in  vain."  What  is  the  reason 
of  this  ?  This  Supreme  Being  must  be  forever  hallowed  in 
human  thought.  He  must  dwell  in  the  human  mind  as  the 
source  and  fountain  of  justice,  goodness  and  love.  And  just 
as  the  making  of  an  image  to  represent  the  Deity  degrades 
the  high  ideal  of  the  Divine  One,  so  profaning  His  name 
degrades  the  thought  of  his  holiness.  It  is  spoiling  the  beauti¬ 
ful  idea  of  divinity  when  you  profane  that  name.  Supreme 
love  and  reverence  must  have  fled  from  the  heart  before  yon 
can  do  it. 

“  Remember  the  Sabbath  day,  to  keep  it  holy,"  is  the  fourth 
commandment  in  the  decalogue.  You  need  the  Sabbath  as  a 
day  of  physical  rest,  when  man  will  turn  from  things  that  we 
call  secular,  and  have  a  day  of  devotion  ;  when  he  shall  forego 
his  money-getting  and  worldly  scheming,  and  direct  his 
thoughts  to  the  contemplation  of  sacred  things.  Our  Saviour, 
taking  up  these  commandments,  says  they  mean  supreme  love 
to  God.  If  we  love  that  Supreme  Being,  we  shall  want  no 
other  ;  we  shall  set  up  no  false  idols  ;  we  shall  not  profane 
His  name  nor  His  holy  day. 

Now  the  government  of  God  proceeds  and  takes  up  the 
other  table  of  laws  in  reference  to  man’s  relations  with  his 
fellow-beings.  “  Honor  thy  father  and  thy  mother ,  that  thy 
days  may  be  long  upon  the  land ”  where  you  shall  dwell.  God 
instituted  the  family  relation  in  the  garden  of  Eden,  and  it  is 
only  as  reverence  and  honor  are  paid  by  the  child  to  the 
earthly  father  and  mother  that  the  stepping  stone  is  reached 


The  Government  of  God. 


69 


by  which  its  devotion  is  carried  up  to  the  Supreme.  The 
gathered  wisdom  of  the  world  cannot  put  down  a  better  foun¬ 
dation-stone  for  human  life  and  character  than  is  contained  in 
this  commandment.  Where  children  grow  up  to  love  and 
respect  their  parents,  you  may  look  for  a  good  outcome.  The 
child  that  can  turn  away  from  the  love  of  a  mother,  the  child 
that  can  scorn  the  teachings  of  a  father — that  child  travels  to 
a  dark  after-life. 

“  Thou  shalt  not  hear  false  witness .”  What  is  the  reason 
of  this  ?  Simply  that  there  must  be  truth  among  men.  Truth 
is  the  basis  of  confidence,  and  confidence  is  essential  to  the 
very  structure  of  society.  The  entire  social  order  would  fall 
to  pieces  if  you  take  away  confidence.  And  that  good  may 
be  enforced,  this  law  of  truth  was  established.  God  has 
builded  every  thing  on  that  law,  and  it  is  a  strange  fact  that 
there  is  nothing  in  the  vast  realm  of  nature  that  lies,  but  man. 
Every  crystal  that  forms  is  true  to  the  law  of  its  nature. 
Every  plant,  every  tree,  every  iron  bolt,  may  be  counted  on 
with  perfect  confidence  so  far  as  the  law  that  governs  it  is 
known.  We  trust  our  lives  in  the  structure  of  this  building 
We  know  that  the  massive  stones  are  true  ;  we  know  that  the 
arches  are  true  ;  we  measure  the  strength  of  the  wood  and  the 
iron,  and  we  know  that  they  will  not  fail  us.  We  launch  a 
vessel,  because  we  know  that  the  waters  will  float  her,  and  the 
winds  will  waft  her  to  her  destination.  God  comes  to  man 
and  says,  Be  true.  The  Saviour  of  the  world  impressed  upon 
us  this  same  law  when  he  said,  “Let  your  nay  be  nay,  and 
your  yea  yea.”  When  you  say  no,  mean  no  ;  and  when  you 
say  yes,  mean  yes. 


70  The  Origin  and  iJestiny  of  Man. 

The  next  commandment  is  :  “  Thou  slialt  not  commit  adul¬ 
tery."  Preserve  the  sanctity  of  home,  the  purity  of  the 
marriage  vow.  Do.  not  adulterate  the  very  source  of  life. 
Defile  not  the  fountain  of  being.  The  best  wisdom  of  man¬ 
kind  stands  by  this  law,  and  it  has  received  the  sanction  of 
civilized  society  in  all  ages. 

God  announces  another  law,  and  says  :  “  Thou  shalt  not 
steal."  Do  not  take  that  which  belongs  to  another.  Don’t 
steal  by  misrepresenting  the  value  of  your  property  in  a  bar¬ 
gain.  Do  not  steal  another  man’s  property  by  running  it 
down.  Do  not  rob  another  man  of  his  reputation  and  char¬ 
acter  by  circulating  falsehoods  about  him.  Let  there  be 
simple,  even-handed  justice  among  men  as  to  property  and 
reputation. 

The  government  of  God  announces  another  law  to  protect 
the  sanctity  of  life —  “  Thou  shalt  not  kill."  It  is  not  in  your 
power  to  give  life,  and  you  shall  not  take  it.  The  enjoyment 
of  liberty  and  happiness  by  the  individual  is  sacred. 

Covering  another  phase  of  human  experience,  we  have  the 
command  :  “  Thou  shalt  not  covet."  Do  not  desire  that 
which  is  not  in  your  possession,  except  to  procure  it  in  a  law¬ 
ful  way.  Look  not  with  covetous  eye  upon  that  which  is 
another’s.  Get  what  you  want  honorably.  Dig  it  out  of  the 
earth,  seek  for  it  in  the  sea,  acquire  it  by  industry — but  do 
not  give  yourself  up  to  selfish  covetousness. 

I  have  gone  over  more  at  length  than  I  at  first  intended 
some  of  the  principles  of  the  government  of  God.  Do  they 
not  commend  themselves  to  your  calmest  reason,  your  clearest 
judgment  ?  It  is  a  grand  thought  that  a  world  of  free  beings, 


The  Government  of  God. 


71 


with  habits  of  sinning  established,  living  under  the  govern¬ 
ment  and  power  of  a  blessed  God,  should  have  given  it  a 
system  of  laws  that  civilized  man  has  not  been  able  to  improve 
upon  in  the  ages  that  have  elapsed  since  they  were  first  pro¬ 
claimed.  And  the  Saviour  says  it  is  all  fulfilled  in  just  this  : 
“  Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  thy  God  with  all  thy  heart,  and 
with  all  thy  soul,  and  with  all  thy  mind,  and  thy  neighbor  as 
thyself.”  There  is  not  a  code  of  laws,  from  the  Roman  or 
Justinian  down  to  this  day,  but  what  is  shaped  largely  by 
that  grand  old  law-giver,  Moses.  And  there  is  not  a  moral 
philosophy  that  can  transcend  in  beauty  and  sublimity  the 
Saviour’s  analysis  of  supreme  love  to  God  and  equal  love  to 
man.  I  like  to  stand  in  the  presence  of  the  subject  in  this 
way,  for  it  stands  by  me  in  the  moment  of  trial.  It  gives  me 
strength  to  feel  that  the  laws  of  God  are  a  power  for  good, 
and  that  they  are  founded  in  justice  and  right. 

Now  it  would  seem  that  the  government  of  God  would 
want  some  method  of  announcing  these  laws — some  practical 
system  of  educating  the  people  up  to  them.  When  the  He¬ 
brew  people  had  wandered  away  from  their  own  land,  when 
they  had  been  in  Egypt  longer  than  this  country  has  been 
discovered,  had  been  idolaters  and  nearly  lost  in  sin  and  cor¬ 
ruption,  God  came  to  them  through  Moses,  and  gave  them 
not  only  law  and  commandment,  but  a  system  of  worship,  by 
which  they  might  be  helped  to  see  Go  1  as  a  Spiritual  Being, 
a  Supreme  Being.  He  gave  them  the  different  rules  in  the 
old  ritual  worship.  It  was  a  system  of  religious  philosophy 
taught  by  object  lessons.  He  put  them  upon  a  system  of 
worship  and  sacrifice,  put  them  under  the  guidance  of  teachers 


72  The  Origin  and  Destiny  of  Man. 

and  leaders  and  prophets,  and  held  them  separate  from  sur¬ 
rounding  nations.  What  for  ?  That  He  might  heal  them 
from  their  idolatry.  The  government  of  God,  in  its  practical 
carrying  out,  dealt  with  that  nation  of  the  Hebrews  through 
centuries  and  thousands  of  years,  till  finally  the  lesson  was  so 
drilled  and  burned  into  their  character  that  through  all  the 
ages  that  have  passed  the  Jews  have  never  been  idolaters. 
They  have  become  exiles  from  their  own  land  ;  they  have 
wept  by  every  river,  and  have  traversed  every  plain  and  crossed 
every  sea  ;  but  they  have  kept  the  faith  and  fulfilled  the  grand 
mission  proclaimed  to  them  by  Moses  amid  the  thunders  of 
Mount  Sinai. 

There  should  be  something  further,  it  would  seem.  Begin¬ 
ning  away  back,  there  might  be  a  dispensation  of  power,  in 
which  God  would  come  forth  as  a  world-builder.  Then  there 
would  come  a  dispensation  of  love,  where  God  would  come 
out  and  reveal  His  love  to  man  in  His  Son  Jesus  Christ,  and 
then  as  a  Holy  Spirit.  But  should  there  not  be  something 
more  than  this — more  than  law,  more  than  education — some¬ 
thing  reaching  the  hearts  of  men  and  winning  them  back  to 
loyalty  to  God  ?  Yes,  and  that  man  might  have  the  thought 
of  the  Supreme  One,  not  as  an  abstraction,  not  as  a  spirit 
in  the  universe,  but  that  he  might  have  the  thought  of  God’s 
coming  to  him  in  human  conditions,  looking  at  him  through 
human  eyes,  God  was  made  manifest  in  the  flesh.  I  pause 
before  this  great  and  glorious  truth — that  the  Infinite  and 
Everlasting  Father,  that  He  might  know  human  suffering  and 
want,  came  down  to  our  wrorld  ;  that  He  might  find  us,  found 
a  manger  ;  that  He  might  know  tempted  man,  went  up  into 


The  Government  of  God. 


73 


the  mountain ;  that  He  might  know  poverty,  found  hunger 
and  thirst ;  that  He  might  know  parental  affection,  took  little 
children  to  His  arms  and  blessed  them  ;  that  He  might  know 
our  pain,  He  sat  down  by  sick  beds  and  wept  by  human 
graves. 

God  became  manifest  in  the  flesh — becoming  personal  to 
man — but  so  coming  to  man  in  tenderness  and  love  as  to  win 
him  back.  Man  can  look  upon  the  Saviour,  and  thus  look 
upon  God.  He  is  our  propitiation.  Take  this  word  propi¬ 
tiation.  What  a  deep  meaning  it  has  !  Suppose  that  you 
and  I  are  friends,  and  I  do  you  an  injury.  It  is  very  easy  for 
you  to  say,  “  I  forgive  you.”  But  you  want  to  save  me,  get 
me  back  where  you  can  love  me,  and  I  can  love  you.  In  order 
to  do  this,  you  must  suffer,  you  must  sacrifice.  Let  your 
child  fall  away  into  sin.  It  is  a  very  easy  thing  to  forgive  that 
child.  But  to  bring  it  back  to  loyalty  and  love,  to  bring  your¬ 
self  back  so  that  you  can  love  it  as  if  it  never  had  sinned — 
this  can  only  be  done  through  suffering.  Here  we  see  the 
truth  that  is  hid  away  in  vicariousnoss — that  God  had  to  suf¬ 
fer.  God  was  in  Christ  reconciling  the  world  unto  Himself. 
To  a  sinning  world  He  said  :  “I  will  suffer,  if  need  be.  I  will 
go  down  into  your  world,  and  let  you  turn  me  away  from  the 
door,  while  you  are  warmly  housed.  I  will  sleep  out  upon 
the  great  earth,  while  you  rejoice  in  plenty.  You  shall  put  a 
crown  of  thorns  upon  my  head,  and,  if  need  be,  you  may 
nail  these  hands  to  the  cross,  and  pierce  my  side  with  the 
cruel  spear,  and  I  will  pray  for  you  all  the  time  you  are  do¬ 
ing  it !  ” 

The  words  that  most  completely  express  the  Divine  Being 


74 


The  Origin  and  Destiny  of  Man. 


are  the  words  that  God  is  Love.  In  God  love  is  infinite,  and 
such  infinite  love  could  not  rest  with  less  than  infinite  sacri¬ 
fice.  Nothing  less  than  Calvary  could  tell  the  yearning  love 
of  God  seeking  to  reconcile  us,  to  bring  us  back  to  peace  and 
loyalty  and  life.  Let  me  ask  you  to  think  for  a  moment  on 
this  blessed  announcement :  “  The  government  shall  be  on 
His  shoulder  ;  and  His  name  shall  be  called  Wonderful,  Coun¬ 
sellor,  The  mighty  God,  the  Everlasting  Father,  the  Prince  of 
Peace;”  that  one  being  chosen  to  represent  the  government 
of  God.  “  The  government  shall  be  on  His  shoulder.”  And 
there  let  it  rest  forever  ;  for  He  stands  forever  for  right,  for¬ 
ever  for  truth,  for  justice,  for  God,  for  humanity.  God  has 
sent  His  Son  into  this  world  to  become  a  king  of  kings  among 
men,  and  we  have  Him  to  rule  over  us.  We  will  be  under 
the  banner  of  this  love  and  this  right.  Will  we  go  by  our 
hands  and  our  hearts  to  the  work  of  this  King  ?  Yes,  my 
friends,  His  kingdom  shall  be  forever,  and  its  peace  shall  have 
no  end.  It  is  lifted  up  in  its  love  and  purity,  and  human 
hearts  are  coming  to  it.  It  was  said,  in  our  Saviour’s  day,  that 
He  had  no  place  to  lay  His  head  ;  but  now  the  world  is  full 
of  temples  for  His  worship,  and  the  press  is  full  of  activity 
in  sending  forth  His  word  to  the  people  in  every  corner  of 
the  earth  ;  and  we,  as  ambassadors,  beseech  you  to  become 
reconciled  to  God.  I  do  not  ask  you  to  join  this  church  or 
that,  to  believe  this  creed  or  that ;  I  stand  here  to  win  souls 
to  Christ ;  I  stand  for  the  great  principles  of  God  on  earth. 
I  beseech  you  in  Christ’s  name  to  come  into  His  kingdom  — 
live  for  Him,  and  reign  forever. 


VI. 


SALVATION. 


Marvel  not  that  I  said  unto  ye,  Ye  must  be  born  again. — John,  in,  7. 

There  is  therefore  now  no  condemnation  to  them  which  are  in  Christ 
Jesus,  who  walk  not  after  the  flesh,  but  after  the  Spirit.  For  the  law  of 
the  Spirit  of  life  in  Christ  Jesus  hath  made  me  free  from  the  law  of  sin 
and  death.  For  what  the  law  could  not  do,  in  that  it  was  weak  through 
the  flesh,  God  sending  his  own  Son  in  the  likeness  of  sinful  flesh,  and 
for  sin,  condemned  sin  in  the  flesh  :  that  the  righteousness  of  the  law 
might  be  fulfilled  in  us,  who  walk  not  after  the  flesh,  but  after  th* 
Spirit.— Romans,  vui,  1-4. 

THE  traveler  has  often  to  journey  over  long  roads  sim¬ 
ply  that  he  may  reach  certain  points,  and  the  student 
has  often  to  pursue  long  studies  simply  as  a  means  of 
being  able  to  reach  other  studies  beyond.  And  so  in  the 
pursuit  of  truth,  we  must  travel  over  its  whole  road  as  far  as 
we  can,  and  it  requires  no  little  thinking  power  to  deal  with 
many  of  its  questions,  especially  as  one  part  stands  related  to 
another.  So  we  have  come  over  what  may  seem  a  long  way 
in  these  discourses,  and  have  reached  at  length  what  I  might 
call  the  heart  of  the  subject.  We  have  come  to  the  point 
where  you  will  see  the  relations  of  one  part  of  theological 
truth  to  another.  We  mentioned  in  one  of  our  discourses  the 
fact  of  the  Tripartite  nature  of  man.  We  have  bodies ;  these 


76 


The  Origin  and  Destiny  of  Man . 


bodies  are  built  out  of  the  earth,  and  have  a  life  much  like 
that  of  the  lower  forms  of  existence  about  us.  We  have  men¬ 
tioned  the  fact  also  that  we  have  minds;  that  these  minds 
stand  related  to  truth ;  and  that  there  is  a  world  of  truth 
outside  the  mind,  answering  to  the  laws  of  truth  as  laid  or 
imbedded  in  the  mind.  We  have  mentioned  the  fact,  also, 
that  we  have  about  us,  as  another  part  of  our  being,  that 
which  is  denominated  the  spiritual  or  Godward  side  of  our 
nature ;  that  which  some  writers  have  called  the  God- 
consciousness  ;  that  which  puts  us  in  relations  to  the  divine, 
brings  before  us  the  realm  of  conscience,  and  enables  us  to 
distinguish  good  from  evil.  I  want  to  insist  upon  the  accu¬ 
racy  of  this  doctrine  from  the  Biblical  standpoint,  for  it  is 
one  not  usually  found  in  our  works  of  philosophy.  Take  the 
various  accounts  of  creation.  We  have  the  creation  of  the 
body.  This  is  distinctly  marked.  Then  we  have  the  other 
distinct  fact  of  the  breathing  of  the  divine  nature  into  man — 
the  imparting  of  something  that  comes  from  God.  And  we 
have  the  fact,  too,  of  the  mental  activities  of  man,  made  man¬ 
ifest  in  his  power  to  name  and  classify  the  things  brought 
before  him.  The  Apostle  Paul  insists  upon  this  Tripartite 
nature  of  man.  He  speaks  distinctly  of  the  same  as  body, 
soul  and  spirit.  I  mention  this  fact  thus  particularly,  because 
it  stands  related  not  only  to  what  I  have  said,  but  to  what 
will  come  after. 

I  briefly  alluded,  also,  in  the  discourse  on  Evil,  to  the  con¬ 
dition  of  man  at  his  creation  —  that  is,  the  Adamic  man,  the 
spiritual  man.  In  the  light  of  the  holy  Scriptures,  we  stand 
in  the  presence  of  the  fact  that  man  was  not  only  created  in 


Salvation. 


77 


the  image  of  God,  but  stood  innocent  before  him.  And  we 
mentioned  the  additional  fact  that  he  was  put  upon  trial  for 
the  attainment  of  active  holiness,  personal  virtue ;  for  it  was 
not  in  the  nature  of  things  for  even  God  to  give  to  man  an 
actively  holy  nature.  He  could  give  to  man  a  nature  that  was 
pure,  a  nature  that  was  potentially  good ;  but  the  making  of 
that  nature  actively  good  must  be  the  work  of  the  individual. 
It  would  not  be  personal  righteousness,  it  would  not  be  per¬ 
sonal  virtue,  if  it  were  something  wrought  out  by  another,  or 
conferred  upon  us.  And  we  have  alluded  to  the  fact  that  our 
first  parents,  in  the  trial,  failed.  The  appetites  and  the  pas¬ 
sions,  the  senses  lodged  in  the  body,  proved  too  strong  for 
that  which  was  spiritual.  The  appetites  went  up  and  the 
spirit  went  down,  and  our  first  parents  failed  to  establish 
themselves  in  active  holiness.  They  failed  to  work  out  per¬ 
sonal  virtue,  and,  failing  in  this,  they  dropped  down  to  the 
plane  of  animal  life,  and  the  spirit  became  subordinate  to  the 
animal.  This  again  establishes  the  relation  of  the  present 
condition  of  the  human  family.  There  is  in  the  nature  of  the 
case  such  a  unity  between  the  original  family,  or  first  pair, 
and  their  descendants,  that  we  cannot  do  otherwise  than  in¬ 
herit  their  nature.  If  we  possessed  the  simple  fact  that  the 
first  pair  had  fallen,  our  knowledge  of  the  laws  of  descent 
would  enable  us  to  predict  that  their  race  would  be  a  fallen 
race.  Look  at  this  in  the  light  of  what  may  be  called  a  philo¬ 
sophical  statement,  and  you  will  see  how  profound  a  truth  is 
this  doctrine  of  human  depravity.  Take  our  lives  as  we 
appear  here  to-night.  These  lives  were  derived  from  our 
parents,  and  their  lives  from  their  parents,  and  our  grand- 


78  The  Origin  and  Destiny  of  Man. 

parents’  lives  were  derived  from  their  parents,  and  so  on ;  so 
that  to-night  we  have  within  us  the  life  of  hundreds  and 
thousands  of  years  ago.  There  is  flowing  through  your  veins 
and  through  mine  the  blood  of  a  thousand  years  ago,  the 
blood  of  five  thousand  years  ago.  There  has  been  no  time  in 
the  course  of  these  centuries  when  the  stream  of  life  has 
dropped  down.  It  has  flowed  steadily  and  continuously 
through  these  earthen  vessels.  This  grand  law  of  inheritance 
is  a  fact  of  great  possible  good  —  a  liability  to  possible  mis¬ 
fortune.  There  is  not  only  a  transmission  of  actual  nature, 
but  there  is  a  transmission  of  habits  and  principles.  Take 
God’s  policy  in  educating  the  Jewish  race,  and  see  how  the 
great  doctrine  of  the  unity  of  God  was  wrought  into  that  fam¬ 
ily,  and  how  it  has  stood  there  through  all  the  ages.  We 
stand  then  in  the  presence  of  two  great  facts :  that  we  are 
related  to  the  fortunes  of  the  past,  and  that  in  our  natures 
we  have  a  tliree-fokl  being. 

Let  us  take  up  life,  as  it  appears  in  the  light  of  these  two 
facts,  and  examine  it.  Childhood  has  its  body-life  ;  the  body 
grows.  It  has  mind-life.  As  mind-life,  it  develops  till  it 
reaches  spirit-life,  and  there  it  stands  related  to  God  and 
goodness.  But  being  in  the  line  of  those  who  have  fallen 
through  the  appetites  and  passions,  we  have  this  strange  fact 
occurring  in  the  childhood  of  our  race  :  In  the  first  few  years 
the  sense  of  truth  and  right  seems,  if  anything,  stronger  than 
the  body  or  the  mind.  But  watch  the  life  of  any  child  that  is 
a  child, — it  may  not  be  the  case  with  the  ideal  fairies  of  the 
Sunday  school  books,  who  never  live  to  be  over  eight  or  ten 
years  old, —  but  take  a  child  made  of  ordinary  flesh  and 


Salvation. 


79 


blood,  and  you  don’t  go  very  far  before  the  body-life  begins 
to  get  stronger  than  the  soul-life  and  to  assert  a  mastery  over 
the  conscience.  The  problem  is  to  get  the  heart  on  the  right 
side.  It  is  right  enough  to  begin  with,  so  far  as  purity  and 
innocence  are  concerned ;  but  some  how  it  comes  to  pass  with 
every  one  of  us  that  we  are  not  only  fallen  beings,  but  we  fall 
ourselves.  We  come  out  of  the  innocence  of  infancy.  The 
appetites  and  senses  get  the  mastery  over  the  spirit,  and  man, 
who  should  be  a  spiritual  being,  and  walk  with  this  fair 
crown  upon  his  brow,  finds  himself  down  here  in  bondage. 

The  divine  administration,  dealing  with  beings  that  in  the 
nature  of  the  case  must  be  free,  and  that  have  this  three-fold 
nature  about  them,  has  also  to  deal  with  fallen  beings.  The 
government  of  God  comes  to  us,  and  taking  hold  of  these 
facts,  seeks  man’s  recovery,  seeks  the  prevention  of  evil  and 
the  promotion  of  good.  How  does  it  proceed  ?  It  seeks  to 
give  man,  as  it  were,  a  period  of  irresponsible  life,  a  trial, 
where  he  stands  under  the  shadow  and  help  of  others.  In 
other  words,  it  provides  that  we  come  into  this  world  in  the 
family  relation,  under  the  sanctity  of  home,  under  the  guar¬ 
dianship  of  tenderest  love;  and  that  we  have  a  number  of 
years  when  we  are  not  responsible,  but  under  the  care  of 
those  who  are  made,  in  a  sense,  responsible  for  us.  I  do  not 
know  whether  you  clearly  see  this  point,  but  it  seems  to  me 
there  is  in  it  something  worthy  of  great  attention  —  that  our 
race  should  have  the  beginning  of  its  perilous  course  in  child¬ 
hood;  that  we  have  a  kind  of  irresponsible  period  during 
which  we  are  not  held  accountable,  but  are  put  under  instruc¬ 
tion  and  guidance  —  a  period  in  which  we  are  gradually 


80 


The  Origin  and  Destiny  of  Man. 


taught  experience  in  the  affairs  of  life,  and  exercised  on  the 
questions  of  truth  and  right  that  may  arise.  And  that  the 
divine  administration  may  help  parents,  there  is  provided  the 
beautiful  and  sacred  ordinance  of  baptism  for  children  —  the 
consecration  of  our  children  to  God.  Not  that  I  suppose  this 
baptism  works  any  change  upon  our  children  ;  not  that  I  sup¬ 
pose  the  old  right  of  circumcision  was  a  preventive  against 
evil.  But  it  is  one  of  those  things  in  which  the  parents  act 
for  the  child ;  bringing  the  child  to  God  and  acting  in  its 
place ;  putting  the  child  over  on  the  side  of  God,  and  starting 
it  on  the  line  of  a  divine  education.  Under  this  thought  of 
baptism  the  child  looks  for  guidance  to  our  experience  as 
parents,  and  for  protection  against  the  sins  and  temptations 
about  us.  It  seems  to  me  that  the  least  we  can  do  for  our 
children  is  to  endeavor  in  some  way  to  bring  them  to  God,  to 
act  for  them,  to  stand  in  their  stead ;  and  not,  as  some  say, 
wait  and  let  the  child  grow  up,  and  let  it  decide  for  itself 
whether  it  wants  to  be  religious  or  not.  We  do  not  wait  and 
let  children  choose  whether  they  will  be  ignorant  or  not.  Our 
first  thought  is  to  see  that  the  mind  is  carefully  instructed. 
Why  should  not  the  heart  be  also  ?  So  it  is  enjoined  upon  us 
that  in  helping  our  race  we  take  our  children,  and  put  them 
over  on  the  Lord’s  side. 

Now,  what  does  the  divine  administration  do  further  ?  Ad¬ 
mitting  the  fact  that  all  that  may  be  done  for  children  is  done, 
still  there  is  the  fallen  nature  about  us.  The  divine  adminis¬ 
tration  comes  to  us  with  the  law  and  commandments.  I  elab¬ 
orated  these  at  some  length  last  Sunday  night.  They  are  the 
rule  of  life,  telling  us  what  we  should  not  do  and  what  we 


Salvation. 


81 


should  do.  What  does  it  seek  to  do  by  this  ?  As  we  are  fallen 
beings,  the  law  and  commandments  are  placed  by  the  side  of 
our  lives,  so  that  we  may  see  wherein  we  have  failed  to  do 
right.  There  must  be  something  which  is  straight  before  you 
can  detect  that  which  varies  from  a  straight  line.  So  the 
commandments  of  God  are  put  alongside  of  our  lives  as  a 
rule,  that  we  may  know  wherein  we  have  failed  to  live  up  to 
that  rule.  They  require  us  to  do  certain  things.  If  we  have 
not  done  these  things,  we  are  convicted  of  sin.  They  forbid 
us  doing  certain  other  things.  If  we  have  transgressed  these 
commandments,  the  commandments  convict  us  of  sin.  God 
not  only  seeks  to  enable  us  to  distinguish  the  right  from  the 
wrong — he  wants  to  reach  our  hearts,  and  bring  us  back  from 
our  wandering,  sinning  and  fallen  state,  back  to  the  law  of 
right,  back  to  the  condition  of  purity. 

And  here  we  reach  the  strength  of  the  text  from  the  book 
of  Romans  :  “For  the  law  of  the  spirit  of  life  in  Christ  Jesus 
hath  made  me  free  from  the  law  of  sin  and  death.”  Man 
needs  something  more  than  simply  the  law  of  right.  He 
wants  purity  to  be  in  sympathy  with  that  law.  The  first  thing 
that  God  seeks  to  do  with  you  and  me,  as  we  approach  matu¬ 
rity,  is  to  awaken  in  us  a  sense  of  our  sin  and  our  need,  and 
to  lead  us  to  that  state  of  mind  we  call  repentance — an  old 
doctrine,  founded  in  great  truth  and  fact.  What  is  it  ?  Re¬ 
pentance  means  a  knowledge  of  sin — a  conviction  of  the  fact 
that  we  have  done  wrong,  or  failed  to  do  right.  This  is  the 
first  step  in  repentance.  A  man  comes  to  think,  and  sees  the 
divine  law,  and  finds  that  his  life  is  not  conformed  to  it,  and 

awakens  to  the  consciousness  that  before  the  law  he  is  con- 

6 


82  The  Origin  and  Destiny  of  Man. 

victed  as  a  sinner.  But  the  divine  administration  wants  to 
go  deeper  than  the  conviction  of  the  mind  that  life  has  not 
conformed  to  the  rule  of  law.  There  must  not  only  be  con¬ 
viction  of  wrong,  but  real  sorrow  for  the  wrong.  It  is  not 
enough  that  man  should  simply  admit  that  his  life  has  not 
been  perfect.  It  is  a  serious  thing  to  do  wrong.  It  is  not  only 
a  transgression  of  the  statute — it  is  a  violation  of  the  ever¬ 
lasting  law  of  principle  and  right ;  and  the  man  who,  in  the 
exercise  of  his  voluntary  powers,  has  committed  the  act,  has 
disturbed  the  moral  order,  broken  its  harmony,  and  intro¬ 
duced  discord  into  his  own  nature.  God  wants  to  work  in 
his  creatures  sorrow  for  having  done  wrong  ;  and  to  bring 
forth  this  result,  to  work  out  genuine  repentance  in  human 
hearts,  He  has  come  to  us  along  that  great  law  of  vicarious¬ 
ness — that  law  of  love.  As  a  knowledge  of  sin  comes  from 
the  law,  sorrow  for  sin  comes  from  the  cross.  It  is  when  infi¬ 
nite  love  comes  down  to  a  manger,  seeks  out  a  Gethsemane 
and  a  Calvary  ;  it  is  when  infinite  love  sends  its  own  Son  into 
the  world  to  honor  and  glorify  the  law  of  right,  and  save  an 
erring  and  wandering  race,  that  the  hearts  of  men  begin  to 
be  touched.  God  would  say  to  us  through  Christ :  “I  love 
and  honor  this  everlasting  principle  of  right  ;  I  love  the 
divine  in  your  wandering  and  sinning  natures,  and  by  my 
suffering,  by  my  life  of  anguish,  I  want  to  work  in  your 
hearts  a  state  of  sorrow  that  you  have  done  wrong.”  God 
wants  to  touch  character  from  within,  to  work  a  mental  and 
spiritual  conversion  from  sin,  a  turning  away  from  it  because 
it  is  wrong. 

And  this  is  the  next  stage  in  a  genuine  repentance.  It  for- 


Salvation. 


83 


sakes  sin.  It  stops  not  short  of  ceasing  to  sin.  It  is  not 
simply  a  struggle  with  sin.  Many  a  man  regrets  that  he  is 
fallen  in  his  appetites  and  passions,  that  he  is  doing  wrong ; 
but  the  love  of  evil  is  too  strong  to  be  overcome,  and  he 
clings  to  it.  Many  a  man  is  sorry  for  the  widow  and  the 
orphan  he  has  wronged  and  defrauded,  but  his  sorrow  is  not 
deep  enough  to  make  him  restore  his  wrongful  gains,  or  to 
keep  him  from  cheating  or  robbing  in  the  future.  Repent¬ 
ance  has  not  done  its  work  till  it  has  brought  a  change  in 
character,  till  the  soul  turns  away  from  sin.  I  like  the  repent¬ 
ance  of  that  square  old  republican,  Zaccheus,  who  climbed  a 
tree  that  he  might  see  his  Lord  as  he  passed  by.  The  sight 
of  Heaven’s  own  Son  walking  earth’s  dusty  way  so  impressed 
him,  the  divine  purity  so  loomed  up  before  him  in  its  beauty, 
that  he  said :  “  Lord,  if  I  have  wronged  any  man,  I  will  re¬ 
store  him  four-fold,  and  the  half  of  my  goods  I  will  give  to 
the  poor.”  This  is  genuine  repentance.  This  is  the  repent¬ 
ance  that  many  fail  to  reach  in  this  world.  Our  money-loving 
age  has  held  a  struggle  right  here.  We  are  sorry  that  we  are 
sinning,  but  it  is  too  good  to  give  up.  We  are  sinning  with 
one  hand,  and  repenting  with  the  other — sinning  during  the 
day  and  repenting  at  night.  Many  men  have  come  to  imagine 
that  Christ  is  a  kind  of  bankrupt  policy,  by  which  they  can 
sin  on  through  life,  and  take  the  benefit  of  this  act,  and  slip 
out  of  punishment  at  last.  There  never  was  a  more  mistaken 
idea.  The  dying  thief  might  obtain  pardon  on  the  cross,  but 
there  has  got  to  be  a  paying-up  in  some  way  for  the  wrong 
doing.  The  economy  of  God  strikes  at  the  root  of  the  tree. 
He  wants  to  work  in  you  and  me  such  a  hatred  of  evil  that 


84 


The  Origin  and  Destiny  of  Man. 


we  will  turn  away  from  it — to  work  in  us  suck  a  love  of  right 
that  we  take  it  for  its  own  sake.  He  not  only  wants  to  work 
a  repentance  for  wrong,  but  a  state  of  trust,  a  state  of  confi¬ 
dence.  Some  how  in  our  moral  darkness  we  are  afraid,  and 
God  wants  to  reach  us  through  the  mercy  of  Calvary,  to  put 
before  us  the  light  of  His  goodness,  so  that  we  shall  turn  in 
confidence  to  Him.  He  wants  us  to  feel  that,  when  we  repent 
of  our  sins,  they  are  forgiven.  In  other  words,  God  not  only 
wants  to  work  repentance,  but  faith. 

Now,  when  we  repent  of  sin  and  forsake  it,  casting  our¬ 
selves  upon  His  love,  the  divine  economy  is  such  that  man 
receives  in  the  first  place  forgiveness.  He  is  pardoned  ;  his 
sins  are  blotted  out.  You  take  the  most  beautiful  and  touch¬ 
ing  example  of  this  in  the  Scriptures.  Possibly  it  is  found 
in  the  parable  of  the  prodigal  son.  Though  the  prodigal  had 
wandered  away,  and  given  himself  up  to  riotous  living,  still 
the  memories  of  home  and  paternal  love  came  to  him  in  his 
hour  of  sadness,  and  he  said  :  “I  will  arise  and  go  to  my 
father,  tell  him  all,  acknowledge  my  sins,  and  take  the  lowest 
place  in  his  household.”  And,  as  he  came,  his  father  was 
looking  out  for  him,  and  saw  him  while  he  was  yet  a  great 
way  off,  and  ran  towards  him,  and  threw  his  arms  about  his 
neck,  kissed  away  his  tears,  ordered  forth  the  best  robe,  put 
the  ring  on  his  hand,  shoes  on  his  feet,  and  killed  for  him  the 
fatted  calf.  He  took  the  erring  son  into  the  bosom  of  his 
family,  and  made  him  feel  that  he  was  forgiven  and  loved  as 
before  he  had  wandered  away.  And  so,  dear  friends,  the  In¬ 
finite  Father  of  us  all  looks  out  in  longing  for  you  and  me  to 
return  ;  and  though  our  sins  tower  up  like  the  mountains,  and 


Salvation. 


85 


are  red  as  the  crimson,  if  we  come  with  our  hearts  broken 
with  contrition,  God  meets  us  with  sweet  forgiveness,  puts 
His  arms  of  love  about  our  neck,  takes  away  our  rags,  gives 
us  white  garments,  and  makes  for  us  a  royal  feast.  There  is 
not  only  repentance  and  pardon  for  us — God  wants  to  reach 
the  very  centre  of  our  being,  and  there  is  provided  for  every 
member  of  our  fallen  race  a  new  birth,  a  new  life,  a  new 
heart.  Man  having  the  law,  but  having  yielded  to  appetite 
and  passion,  God  comes  now  with  His  Holy  Spirit  and  touches 
the  God  ward  side  of  man’s  three-fold  nature  —  touches  the 
conscience,  and  communicates  new  life  to  it.  I  honestly  be¬ 
lieve  in  the  doctrine  of  regeneration  taught  by  the  churches. 
There  is  a  vital  union  between  the  Divine  Spirit  and  the  spirit 
in  man.  There  is  an  actual  birth  ;  there  is  a  being  born  from 
above.  This  is  what  God  wants  to  do  with  human  character — 
not  only  blot  out  the  sins  of  the  past,  but  give  man  a  new  life, 
a  new  nature — a  life  not  of  the  flesh,  but  of  the  spirit. 

Thus  you  see  how  the  divine  administration  comes  to  man, 
working  conviction,  working  sorrow  for  sin,  imparting  confi¬ 
dence  to  the  human  mind,  drawing  souls  to  Himself,  pardon¬ 
ing  sin,  and  then  changing  man’s  heart  and  making  him  a 
new  character.  The  atonement  is  vastly  more  than  a  plan  or 
method  by  which  justice  may  be  satisfied  and  the  sinner  set 
free.  It  is  at-one-ment — making  man  one  with  God,  charac¬ 
tering  him  in  righteousness,  carrying  him  back  into  the  very 
life  of  God.  I  ask  you  to  ponder  what  I  am  saying  here.  I 
ask  you  to  not  only  ponder  it,  but  to  put  what  I  am  saying  by 
the  side  of  consciousness,  by  the  side  of  human  sorrows,  by 
the  side  of  human  wants,  and  see  if  it  is  not  worthy  of  God’s 


86 


The  Origin  and  Destiny  of  Man. 


truth.  If  what  I  have  said  is  true,  the  purpose  of  God  in 
dealing  with  the  world  is,  meeting  it  in  its  mature  years  with 
the  Bible  and  a  revealed  law,  meeting  it  with  the  offer  of 
pardon  and  a  pure  nature — the  purpose  of  God  is  to  carry 
man  back  as  far  as  may  be  into  that  state  where  law  is  not 
needed,  where  man  is  a  law  unto  himself,  where  man  does  not 
live  by  simply  looking  at  the  statute,  but  where  each  one  so 
loves  truth  and  right  that  he  does  the  right  for  its  own  sake. 
Hence,  He  seeks  to  reach  character. 

In  the  light  of  what  I  have  said,  we  may  see  the  difference 
between  what  I  call  the  moral  and  the  religious  side  of  man. 
There  seem  to  be  two  hemispheres  to  the  God  ward  part  of 
our  being,  as  there  are  two  tables  of  laws.  One  part  looks 
down  upon  the  earthly  relations,  and  takes  in  the  question  of 
duty  to  man.  The  other  looks  heavenward,  and  takes  in  our 
obligations  to  God.  And  it  seems  that  this  lower  part  of  our 
nature  may  be  so  illumined,  that  in  almost  every  community 
men  may  be  found  who  discharge  their  duty  to  man  with 
scrupulous  fidelity,  and  yet  have  very  little  conscience  toward 
God.  I  know,  and  you  know,  plenty  of  men  who  seem  to  be 
illumined  and  awakened  on  the  side  of  right,  and  yet  their 
souls  are  dead  to  the  Divine  Spirit.  I  am  glad  to  say  even 
this  much  for  this  class  of  men,  for  there  was  a  time  when  I 
thought  it  right  to  preach  against  simple,  naked  morality,  for 
I  took  the  ground  quite  commonly  held  that  it  was  easier  to 
win  a  sinning  soul  to  God  than  to  convert  an  unbeliever 
entrenched  within  the  rigid  lines  of  morality.  But  since  the 
Methodist  preachers’  meeting  in  Chicago  has  been  discussing 
the  question  whether  the  tendency  of  the  church  is  to  make 


Salvation. 


87 


men  moral,  we  may  be  glad  that  some  men  can  be  moral,  even 
if  we  cannot  win  them  to  Christ.  But  there  is  something 
more  needed,  my  friends.  A  man  may  be  thoroughly  awake 
in  his  conscience  toward  his  neighbor,  yet,  when  you  talk  to 
him  of  prayer  or  worship,  there  is  an  utter  want  of  sympathy. 
But  there  comes  a  time  to  all  of  us  when  that  which  is  Spirit 
in  God  touches  that  which  is  spirit  in  us,  and  man  feels 
some  how  that  he  is  called  to  render  unto  God  the  things 
which  are  His. 

The  truly  religious  man  is  distinguished  from  the  moral 
man  as  the  one  that  has  both  hemispheres  of  his  being 
touched,  and  has  love  to  God  as  well  as  to  man.  There  are 
some  strange  things  in  human  character.  Sometimes  a  man 
who  is  sensitively  alive  towards  God,  is  dark  towards  man.  I 
have  known  cases  where  men  seem  completely  possessed  with 
the  Divine  Spirit;  the  coronal  part  of  their  being  seemed  open 
to  God.  And  yet  you  never  know  whether  they  are  telling  the 
truth  or  not.  You  know  that  they  will  cheat,  and  you  feel 
that  your  wife  or  daughter  is  not  any  too  safe  in  their  society. 
As  examples  of  such  abnormal  development  of  the  religious 
side  of  man,  take  the  two  noted  Methodists  in  the  East,  who 
have  just  disgraced  not  only  Methodism,  but  religion  itself. 
If  Beecher  fell,  he  fell  in  that  way.  His  conscience  was 
illumined  on  the  religious  side,  but  obscured  on  that  pre¬ 
sented  to  man.  On  the  other  hand,  a  man  may  be  wanting 
in  devotion  towards  God,  and  yet  be  true  towards  man.  I 
know  men  who  do  not  pray,  and  yet,  on  any  question  of  hon¬ 
esty,  they  are  absolutely  above  suspicion. 

The  character  that  I  plead  for,  the  holiness  I  plead  for,  is 


88 


The  Origin  and  Destiny  of  Man. 


the  conversion  of  both  hemispheres  of  our  nature  ;  that  which 
takes  man  from  his  sins  and  helps  him  into  purity  ;  sets 
him  to  praying,  singing,  shouting,  if  need  be  ;  unlocks  the 
fountains  of  his  being  towards  God  ;  makes  him  walk  the  earth, 
sweetly  conscious  of  the  life  above,  and  with  the  tenderest 
regard  for  justice,  and  truth,  and  sympathy,  and  love  among 
men.  And  this  is  what  God  is  striving  to  do  with  human 
character.  When  we  get  at  the  inmost  secret  of  things,  we 
shall  find  that  what  is  Supreme  in  our  being  is  the  Spirit.  Be, 
then,  a  man  in  the  fullest  sense.  Live  a  life  of  conscious  love 
to  God  and  love  to  man.  I  will  not  be  thought  boasting,  for 
that  is  not  in  my  heart,  but  I  say  it  from  firm  conviction,  that 
here  in  this  heart-work  is  the  spirit,  the  genius,  the  animus 
of  the  Methodist  church.  Wo  may  depart  from  it,  but  its 
genius  is  to  work  upon  the  inward  forces  of  man’s  nature. 
John  Wesley  was  so  liberal  a  man  in  his  theology  that  the 
Calvinists  claim  him  to-day  as  being  on  their  side.  This  is 
the  spirit  in  which  I  would  teach,  and  that  T  would  leave  as  a 
sweet  memory  in  your  minds  when  I  may  have  gone  to  other 
fields  of  labor — that  God’s  great  purpose  is  to  touch  our 
hearts,  to  win  us  by  His  love,  to  make  us  pure  within,  and 
send  us  out  into  t'he  world  doing  good.  It  you  have  wandered 
from  God,  come  back  to  His  open  arms.  If  you  are  strug¬ 
gling  with  sin,  battling  with  appetite  and  passion,  bring  your 
fallen  nature  to  Him  ;  ask  Him  to  touch  it,  and  it  shall  be 
whole  j  ask  Him  to  lift  up  your  broken  nature,  and  He  will  do 
it.  He  will  give  you  peace,  and  love  and  joy— a  home  ever¬ 
lasting  in  the  skies. 


VII. 


THE  CHANGE  WE  CALL  DEATH. 


For  dust  thou  art,  and  unto  dust  shalt  thou  return. — Genesis,  hi,  19. 
So  teach  us  to  number  our  days,  that  we  may  apply  our  hearts  unto 
wisdom.— Psalm  xc,  12. 

THE  mind  of  man  is  not  satisfied  with  observing  things 
as  they  appear,  or  to  study  them  as  they  are.  It  seeks 
for  both  causation  and  ultimation.  It  wants  to  go  back 
of  even  the  origin  of  things,  and  then  it  wants  to  go  forward 
and  see  to  what  they  tend.  In  other  words,  the  mind  of  man 
wants  to  know  both  the  origin  and  the  end.  In  deference  to 
this  desire  we  have  thought  it  might  be  instructive  and  profit¬ 
able  to  go  back  into  the  deep  past,  and  we  have  for  a  time 
been  living  in  this  past.  We  have  stood  back  in  the  shadows 
of  the  star-mist,  when  the  solid  material  of  this  globe,  and 
perhaps  of  all  the  worlds  in  the  universe,  existed  only  as  a 
nebulous  mass.  And  in  thought  we  have  seen  the  impact 
communicated  to  this  mass  by  the  Divine  Mind,  and  we  have 
seen  the  systems  of  worlds  slowly  evolved  and  taking  their 
place  in  the  orderly  heavens.  We  have  attempted  to  stand, 
too,  at  the  beginning  of  life,  and  to  journey  forward  and 
upward  with  the  life  on  our  planet,  till  from  its  little  begin¬ 
nings  in  the  vegetable  and  the  animal  we  have  reached  the 


90 


The  Origin  and  Destiny  of  Man. 


perfect  forms  that  are  about  us.  We  have  sought,  too,  in 
thought,  to  stand  back  in  the  infancy  and  purity  of  our  race, 
and  have  contemplated  the  tragedy  of  evil ;  have  looked  upon 
our  world  in  its  trial,  in  its  fall,  and  in  its  sin ;  and  have  tried 
to  study  the  government  of  God  over  such  a  world,  and  the 
results  of  this  government  in  the  recovery,  so  far  as  may  be, 
of  the  race,  and  the  building  up  of  character  during  a  period 
of  probation.  We  now,  in  deference  to  the  other  desire,  to 
know  the  future,  will  attempt  to  go  forward.  It  is  the  13th 
day  of  the  month  of  February,  in  the  year  1876,  and  from 
this  little  point  of  time  we  shall  essay  the  task  of  journeying 
into  the  future,  and  seeking  through  all  open  gates  and  by 
all  possible  ways,  to  thread  the  destiny  of  things.  For,  see¬ 
ing  these  forces  set  in  motion,  and  standing  in  the  results  of 
this  mighty  causation,  we  can  but  feel  an  interest  in  knowing 
what  is  to  be  the  destiny  of  man,  the  destiny  of  the  little 
world  on  which  we  live. 

Were  we  for  the  first  time  to  look  out  upon  life,  and  study 
its  phenomena,  we  would  find  one  of  these  to  be  growth  ;  that 
under  a  law  ceaseless  and  silent  there  is  an  accretion  of  ele¬ 
ments  about  the  germinal  principle  ;  and  that  the  life-forms, 
both  vegetable  and  animal,  increase  in  size — some  with  more, 
some  with  less  rapidity,  some  through  a  longer  and  some 
through  a  shorter  period.  Had  we  never  seen  anything  of 
the  kind  before,  the  fact  would  at  once  fix  our  attention,  and 
we  should  wonder  to  see  the  plant  lift  up  its  stem  and  throw 
out  its  branches,  and  the  branches  throw  out  their  leaves  and 
flowers;  or  to  witness  the  tree  coming  forth  from  its  little 
germ,  and  steadily  holding  its  way  up  in  the  air,  till  its  top- 


The  Change  We  Call  Death. 


91 


most  branches  may  be  a  hundred  feet  high.  Had  we  never 
seen  such  things  before,  these  facts  would  be  called  interest¬ 
ing  and  extraordinary.  And  so.  were  it  not  so  common  that 
it  ceases  to  attract  notice,  it  would  be  called  wonderful  to  see 
a  human  being  take  on  additional  size,  additional  height,  and 
breadth  and  weight,  till  the  child  has  grown  to  be  a  man.  If 
we  still  keep  our  minds  on  the  phenomena  of  life,  we  find  that 
another  peculiarity  is  that  the  things  which  grow  reach  the 
point  of  maturity,  where  they  cease  to  grow.  This  fact,  also, 
is  so  common  that  it  fails  to  awaken  interest,  much  less  sur¬ 
prise.  But  if  wre  studied  this  as  a  new  world,  and.  having 
ascertained  the  law  of  growth  in  the  plant,  in  the  animal,  and 
in  man,  found  that  this  process  of  growing  stopped,  we  would 
be  led  to  inquire  what  this  means.  The  thought  may  seem 
strange  the  first  time  you  reflect  upon  it  — “  I  have  ceased  to 
grow.”  If  we  watch  the  life-forces  beyond  the  point  of 
growth,  beyond  the  point  where  they  reach  maturity  and 
cease  to  grow,  we  would  observe  another  strange  phenome¬ 
non.  We  should  find  that  there  appeared  in  the  plant,  in  the 
tree,  and  in  the  animal,  evidences  of  what  we  call  decay,  pre¬ 
monitions  of  the  wasting  of  vitality.  There  would  come  upon 
the  leaf,  the  plant  and  the  flower  the  seared  edge,  the  change¬ 
ful  hue ;  on  the  topmost  boughs  of  the  great  tree  the  stems 
would  begin  to  wither ;  on  the  faces  of  our  friends  the  lines 
of  time  are  borne,  and  the  silver  hair  takes  the  place  of  the 
once  golden  or  auburn  locks.  I  say,  had  we  not  witnessed 
this  before,  it  would  set  us  to  asking :  What  is  this  ?  What  is 
that  which  grew,  that  which  held  its  growth  in  mature  life, 
and  now  begins  to  go  down  ?  And  here  we  would  stand  upon 


92 


The  Origin  and  Destiny  of  Man . 


the  threshold  of  the  first  great  landmark  of  destiny.  The 
first  point  in  destiny  is  death. 

We  would  not  be  satisfied  with  reaching  this  first  point. 
Our  inquisitive  minds  will  keep  going  back  and  going  deeper, 
and  asking  why  this  is  so — whence  came  death  ?  And  now, 
as  I  study  death  both  in  the  lower  and  the  higher  realms  of 
life,  I  am  compelled  to  believe  that  the  presence  of  death 
here  is  as  natural  as  the  presence  of  life.  It  seems  to  be  a 
part  of  the  constitution  of  things,  and  not  the  result  of  any 
outcome  of  man’s  sinning.  For  I  must  feel,  I  must  know, 
that  death  was  present  in  our  world  ages  before  man’s  advent. 
We  cannot  turn  the  pages  of  geology  without  standing  in  the 
presence  of  overwhelming  evidence  that  death  was  upon  our 
planet  long  before  man  came.  Therefore  it  surely  cannot  be 
attributed  to  his  sinning.  There  was  a  time  when  the  life- 
forces  teemed  in  the  marshy  lowlands  and  in  the  hot,  humid 
atmosphere,  where  the  life-forms  that  now  exist  could  not 
have  lived  for  a  moment.  Even  before  man  came  upon  the 
earth,  whole  species  of  animal  life  had  lived  their  day,  filled 
their  mission,  and  passed  away.  One  of  the  most  incredible 
blunders  that  the  theologians  of  the  past  have  made  is  to 
attribute  the  fact  of  death  to  the  sinning  of  man.  One  of  the 
first  books  that  I  had  to  study  in  my  theological  course  taught 
that  the  presence  of  storms,  of  volcanoes  and  drouths,  the 
presence  of  death  in  any  form,  was  to  be  attributed  to  human 
sinning.  But  this  must  all  be  given  up. 

I  look  upon  death  in  the  lower  orders  of  life  not  only  as 
natural,  but  as  absolutely  necessary,  and  as  being  part  of  the 
divine  plan.  It  is  necessary  in  order  that  the  old  may  give 


The  Change  We  Call  Death. 


93 


place  to  tlie  new.  Take  tlie  vegetable  world  :  unless  the 
fields  were  cleared  by  the  death  of  the  old  crop,  there  would 
not  be  room  for  the  new.  Death  in  the  animal  world,  also,  is 
necessary  on  the  simple  ground  of  making  room  for  new  life. 
A  curious  calculation  has  been  made  as  to  the  amount  of 
room  that  would  be  required  to  furnish  living  places  for  dif¬ 
ferent  forms  of  life  had  there  been  no  death,  and  it  is  said 
that  the  English  sparrow,  which  brings  forth  its  young  four 
times  a  year,  producing  four  young  at  a  time  —  that  this  little 
bird,  if  there  were  no  deaths  of  sparrows,  would  in  a  century 
not  only  fill  the  forests,  the  fields  and  the  air,  but  there 
would  be  no  room  for  anything  on  the  earth  or  in  the  air  but 
sparrows.  Take  other  forms  of  life.  Suppose  there  had  been 
no  deaths  among  the  fishes  in  the  sea;  there  are  not  seas 
enough  in  ten  thousand  worlds  like  this  to  hold  the  fishes 
that  would  accumulate  in  a  few  centuries.  Had  there  been  no 
deaths  among  animals,  from  the  beginning  until  this  time, 
and  had  they  gone  on  at  a  natural  rate  of  increase,  they  would 
have  enlarged  the  size  of  this  round  earth  till  it  would  extend 
beyond  the  orbit  of  Neptune. 

Now  we  come  to  look  at  death  in  reference  to  man,  and  the 
question  arises:  Would  he  have  been  subject  to  this  law  of 
death,  had  there  been  no  sinning?  We  might  be  led,  from 
our  studies  of  the  nature  of  man,  to  think  it  would  be  prob¬ 
able  that  he  might  be  an  exception  to  the  general  rule.  He 
is  an  exception  in  many  respects.  He  differs  from  every  other 
product  of  nature  in  form,  n  feature,  and  in  the  fact  of  his 
mental  and  spiritual  endowments.  Were  we  studying  this 
subject  as  a  speculation,  and  had  we  found  that  the  law  of 


94 


The  Origin  and  Destiny  of  Man. 


death  had  dominion  over  every  form  of  life  below  man,  we 
might  reach  the  conclusion  that  man  would  be  an  exception 
to  this  law.  The  reasoning  from  causation  would  be  in  favor 
of  the  fact  that  he,  having  a  divine  nature,  something  related 
to  God,  would  be  an  exception,  and  we  should  be  justified  in 
thinking  that  death  came  to  the  human  family  as  a  conse¬ 
quence  of  sin,  or  the  violation  of  the  law  of  his  higher  nature. 
Thus  it  is  stated  in  our  text,  that,  as  a  part  of  the  punishment 
of  Adam’s  transgression,  he  should  return  to  the  dust  out  of 
which  he  was  taken.  The  Apostle  Paul  states  it  very  strongly 
when  he  says  that  by  one  man  sin  entered  into  the  world,  and 
death  by  sin. 

If  the  mind  is  disposed  to  carry  this  subject  a  little  further, 
we  can  only  say,  as  a  matter  of  speculation,  that,  if  man  had 
continued  to  live  on  that  spiritual  plane  where  he  was  first 
placed,  he  might  have  lived  above  the  law  of  decay,  above 
the  law  of  death.  But  he  dropped  from  the  domain  of  the 
spirit  down  to  the  plane  of  natural  forces,  and  he  took  the 
consequences  of  his  fall.  The  same  objection  may  arise  in 
the  minds  of  some  as  to  whether  there  would  be  room  in  the 
earth  for  man,  had  he  been  above  the  law  of  death.  This 
would  hold  good  if  the  race  had  remained  and  multiplied  on 
the  earth.  But  there  might  have  been  some  kind  of  exalta¬ 
tion,  some  kind  of  transformation  or  translation.  He  might 
have  arisen  and  become  an  inhabitant  of  other  planets.  We 
cannot  tell,  nor  is  it  necessary  to  pursue  the  speculation. 
We  find  ourselves  under  the  dominion  of  death,  subject  to  its 
laws,  like  the  grass,  and  the  flower,  and  the  fish,  and  the  bird  ; 
and  here  we  look  with  great  interest  to  the  method  of  the 


The  Change  We  Call  Death. 


95 


divine  carrying  out  of  this  sentence.  If  we  studied  this  ques¬ 
tion  from  the  outside,  we  might  be  led  to  think,  as  when  we 
look  at  creation  from  the  outside,  that  dying  would  be  the 
result  of  some  mechanical  process  working  from  without. 
We  might  think  it  would  require  some  vast  machinery,  like 
that  required  to  make  a  world.  But  in  the  presence  of  God’s 
laws,  working  from  within  and  not  from  without,  the  taking 
down  of  the  tabernacle  of  life  is  even  easier  than  the  building 
it  up.  There  is  no  noise,  no  presence  of  any  outside  working 
machinery — simply  the  silent  and  intense  action  of  the  forces 
of  God,  which  work  from  within. 

As  we  stand  more  immediately  in  the  presence  of  the  agen¬ 
cies  by  which  we  die,  we  may  for  a  moment  look  upon  some 
of  the  forms  of  disease.  Many  of  these  diseases  seem  to  de¬ 
pend  upon  the  elements  which  exist  about  us,  as  the  subtle 
poison  or  malaria  in  the  atmosphere,  lying  back  of  fevers 
which  carry  thousands  away.  There  are  the  diseases  which 
have  become  inherited  in  our  race — the  whole  family  of  scrof¬ 
ulous  diseases,  and  the  wasting  consumption.  There  are  also 
the  forms  of  sickness  which  are  incident  to  childhood,  and 
which  are  called  constitutional.  So  that,  by  one  cause  and 
another,  our  race  is  actually  in  the  presence  of  a  whole  army 
of  diseases  that  hover  about  us — an  army  killing  and  slaying 
so  remorselessly  that  it  cuts  down  one-half  our  race  before 
they  are  twelve  miles  from  the  cradle,  and  slaying  one  after 
another  on  the  march  of  life,  till  only  a  few  reach  its  remotest 
journey,  and  die  at  last  from  the  wearing  out  of  the  physical 
organism.  This,  no  doubt,  was  not  the  way  it  was  intended. 
Even  in  our  fallen  world,  were  we  to  live  up  to  the  laws  of 


96 


The  Origin  and  Destiny  of  Man. 


nature  in  the  fullest  sense,  we  might  all  reach  a  mature  old 
age,  and  die  at  last,  as  the  leaf  falls  in  the  autumn,  or  the 
wheel  stands  still. 

Now  the  question  arises  as  to  the  exact  nature  of  this  thing 
that  we  call  dying,  What  is  it  ?  In  what  does  it  consist  ? 
What  work  does  it  do  ?  What  is  it  that  dies  ?  And  here  I 
come  back  again  to  the  three-fold  division  of  our  nature. 
That  which  we  call  dying  relates  simply  to  these  bodies  of 
ours.  It  cuts  off  the  relation  of  the  mind  and  spirit  to  the 
physical  organism  in  which  they  exist — leaves  the  body  as 
dead,  and  the  mind  and  spirit  as  undressed  from  the  earthly 
tabernacle  in  which  they  exist.  The  change  is  a  great  one, 
and  even  a  solemn  one.  Take  the  thought  of  dying.  It  is 
more  than  sickness.  When  a  man  is  sick  he  suffers  pain,  the 
flesh  wastes  away,  and  his  strength  is  gone.  Yet  there  is  still 
a  hold  upon  the  vital  organism,  and  the  man  may  recover. 
What  we  call  dying  is  more  than  sickness  or  pain.  It  is  sick¬ 
ness  and  pain  carried  to  the  point  where  their  work  is  done. 
And  what  a  change  is  this — for  one  to  lose  his  hold  upon  a 
bodily  existence,  to  lose  his  hold  upon  all  the  outside  world 
that  the  body  stands  related  to  !  What  a  complete  severance 
is  there  of  the  relations  that  hold  us  to  material  things  when 
one  dies !  A  solemn  event,  I  say,  that  takes  us  out  of  this 
sense  life — the  eye  closed,  the  ear  forever  heavy,  the  hands 
still,  the  heart  pulseless,  the  body  a  mere  lump  of  clay.  Not 
only  a  removal  out  of  the  earthly  house,  but  from  everything 
that  we  have  through  our  relations  to  the  body.  One  stricken 
by  death  gives  up  forever  his  seat  in  the  chair,  his  place  at 
the  table  and  by  the  fireside  •  he  ceases  to  appear  upon  the 


The  Change  We  Call  Death . 


97 


street,  to  stand  in  the  bank  or  at  the  counter,  to  move  in  the 
business  mart ;  his  voice  is  heard  no  more ;  the  places  that 
know  him  shall  know  him  no  more.  Strange,  strange  destiny, 
my  friends,  awaiting  you  and  me,  that  we  must  soon  put  off 
these  bodies,  and  cease  to  live  in  the  senses.  Soon  the  eye 
that  weeps,  the  cheek  of  beauty,  the  lip  of  song — soon,  soon 
they  are  all  but  dust. 

Not  only  strange,  but  of  all  the  certainties  of  life  there  is 
nothing  so  absolutely  certain  as  the  fact  of  this  change  that 
we  call  dying.  We  may  cling  to  life  with  all  the  intensity  of 
love,  we  may  turn  every  leaf,  thread  every  winding  stream, 
visit  every  clime,  go  where  we  will,  live  as  we  will,  this  strange 
thing  of  death  follows  in  our  footsteps.  There  is  absolutely 
no  escape.  I  stand  with  strange  emotions,  as  I  look  out  upon 
these  hundreds  of  faces,  as  I  look  upon  the  forms  of  youth 
and  of  age,  and  think  that  when  a  few  years  have  come  and 
gone,  we  shall  all  have  been  gathered  to  our  fathers;  that  other 
feet  shall  press  these  aisles,  and  other  voices  be  heard  in  this 
pulpit ;  that  other  people  will  walk  these  streets,  stand  in  the 
business  centres,  and  go  out  here  to  the  city  of  the  dead,  and 
read  the  names  on  the  white  marble.  And  as  they  look  at 
one  stone,  they  will  say  :  “There  lies  that  man  ;  he  was  a 
banker.  Do  you  know  his  son  who  went  to  California,  or  his 
daughter,  that  lived  in  this  or  some  other  city  ?  They  are 
dead.”  “Do  you  know  that  one  that  lies  there?  He  built 
that  great  block  down  town.  And  there  is  the  tomb-stone  of 
that  early  settler,  who  projected  so  many  enterprises,  and 
helped  to  build  up  the  city.”  This  is  the  way  they  will  talk 

about  you  and  about  me,  and  the  wheels  of  industry  will  roll 
7 


98 


The  Origin  and  Destiny  of  Man. 


on,  the  merry  laughter  of  childhood  will  ring  out,  the  sportive 
jest  will  go  round,  and  the  flowers  will  bloom  and  fade  above 
you  and  me  sleeping,  sleeping  down  in  the  ground.  Strange, 
strange  destiny  that  all  must  die  ! 

Now  we  may  ask,  Is  this  that  we  call  death  the  end  of  our 
being  ?  It  will  be  anticipating  the  subject  of  immortality, 
and  yet  I  want  to  say  a  few  things  here.  It  seems  to  me,  if 
we  get  a  correct  view  of  death,  that  it  is  only  another  form 
of  birth — a  kind  of  upward  movement  instead  of  downward. 
Before  we  came  into  this  world  we  had  our  life  in  connection 
with  the  life  of  our  mothers  ;  we  drew  our  life  from  our 
mothers.  And  after  reaching  a  point  where  it  was  possible  to 
live  independent  of  our  mothers,  we  came  out  into  this  world, 
and  found  ourselves  here  in  bodies,  which  are  only  a  kind  of 
walking  matrix,  in  which  the  higher  life  is  being  developed. 
Separated  from  our  maternal  life,  there  is  another  umbilicus , 
the  air,  that  seems  to  bind  us  to  the  great  life  we  are  now  liv¬ 
ing.  We  enter  upon  this  higher  and  wider  life  by  breathing  ; 
we  hold  it  by  breathing,  and  we  live  in  this  walking  matrix, 
receiving  strength  from  our  vaster  mother,  nature,  and  we 
seem  to  develop  until  it  is  severed,  and  we  are  born  up  into  a 
higher  life.  So  it  looks  to  me  as  I  contemplate  this  strange 
mystery  of  life.  It  seems  to  me  that  when  this  life  goes  out, 
we  are  born  into  some  condition  of  being  that  is  higher.  If 
we  take  this  view  of  the  subject,  it  relieves  what  we  call  dying 
of  much  of  the  unnecessary  darkness  and  gloom  that  has 
been  thrown  about  it.  It  reminds  me  of  a  beautiful  allegory 
I  have  somewhere  read.  It  is  related  that  a  tree  heard  one 
of  its  leaves  crying,  and  coming  to  the  leaf,  asked  it  what  it 


The  Change  We  Call  Death. 


99 


was  crying  about.  And  the  leaf  said  that  the  wind  had  told 
it  that  the  time  would  come  when  it  must  be  blown  away. 
Then  the  tree  told  the  branch,  and  the  branch  told  the  leaf 
to  dry  its  tears ;  it  should  not  die,  but  should  continue  to 
sport  inself  in  the  summer  breeze  and  the  summer  sunshine. 
But  after  a  while  the  leaf  saw  a  silent  change  coming  over  its 
fellow-leaves.  They  gradually  put  off  their  modest  green, 
and  were  decked  in  hues  of  purple  and  gold.  It  looked  upon 
this  dress  of  beauty,  and  upon  its  own  familiar  green,  and  it 
began  to  cry  again,  and  the  branch  told  the  tree  that  the  leaf 
was  crying,  and  the  tree  came  again  to  see  about  what  the  leaf 
was  crying.  And  the  leaf  said:  “  The  other  leaves  are  dressed 
in  garments  of  beauty,  while  I  keep  on  my  old  garment  of 
green,  and  I  cry.”  Then  the  tree  told  the  leaf  that  this  change 
of  dress  would  be  put  off  to-morrow,  and  that  it  might  now,  if 
it  wished,  put  on  these  garments.  And  thus  the  leaf  was  per¬ 
mitted  to  put  on  the  golden  hues,  and  the  winds  of  autumn 
came,  and  soon  it  was  borne  away. 

So,  my  friends,  much  as  we  dread  the  autumn  and  winter 
of  death,  we  might  well  weep  if  we  had  forever  to  stay  down 
in  these  lower  worlds,  in  these  feeble  bodily  conditions,  down 
at  the  bottom  of  this  ocean  of  atmosphere,  when  the  worlds 
of  beauty  roll  on  forever  in  immensity,  and  souls  are  rising 
and  casting  off  their  garments  of  dust,  and  passing  away. 
Let  us  rather  rejoice  that,  having  had  a  birth  that  brought 
us  into  this  state,  and  a  development  as  far  as  possible,  we 
may  welcome  the  approach  of  the  hosts  of  joy,  dressed  in 
garments  woven  by  angel  fingers  ;  welcome  the  lines  that  time 
brings  about  the  eye  ;  welcome  the  weight  of  years  that 


100 


The  Origin  and  Destiny  of  Man. 


begins  to  press  us  down ;  welcome  tlie  weakness  of  age,  the 
decay  of  strength,  the  dimness  of  sight,  tbe  dullness  of  hear¬ 
ing  ;  and  even  let  the  cold  winds  of  winter  and  the  hot  suns 
of  summer  hasten  the  process,  for  it  is  only  the  wearing  out 
of  the  body,  the  putting  on  of  garments  for  the  evening,  the 
getting  ready  for  the  morning  ;  and  then  will  come  the  whis¬ 
per  by-and-bye  :  “  You  have  traveled  long  enough,  you 

have  toiled  long  enough  ;  now  lay  down  the  burden,  gather  up 
your  feet,  and  go  to  the  vaster  realm  above  and  beyond  !  ” 

In  the  language  of  this  other  text,  we  may  well  pray  in  the 
presence  of  such  a  strange  mystery  as  this,  “  So  teach  us  to 
number  our  days  that  we  may  apply  our  hearts  unto  wisdom;  ” 
that  we  may  not  live  only  in  the  body  or  only  in  the  senses; 
that  when  death  comes  and  smites  this  tabernacle,  the  spirit 
which  inhabits  it  may  be  ready  for  its  final  home.  Let  us 
weave  now  the  fair  garment  of  intelligence,  of  purity,  of 
truth,  of  goodness,  and  of  character,  my  friends  ;  live  by  the 
law  of  right,  that  we  may  go  down  to  death  with  anticipation, 
and  not  with  dread.  For  the  sting  of  death  is  sin,  and  the 
strength  of  sin  is  the  law,  and  over  it  God  has  given  us  the 
victory,  through  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  I  bid  you  take  on 
the  higher  life,  the  better  life,  the  helpful  life,  the  Christ-life. 
Then  death  will  only  touch  that  which  is  dust,  and  the 
freed  spirit,  redeemed  and  purified  and  saved,  will  pass 
through  the  valley  and  the  shadow  without  fear,  and  dwell  in 
His  presence  forever.  May  God  add  His  blessing. 


VIII. 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL. 

t i 


God  is  not  the  God  of  the  dead,  but  of  the  living. — Matthew,  xxn,  32. 

OUR  last  discourse  of  this  series  was  on  that  change 
which,  in  the  language  of  our  world,  we  call  dying ; 
and  we  come  now,  in  the  natural  order  of  things,  to 
inquire  whether  this  change  terminates  our  existence,  or 
whether,  in  any  sense,  we  survive  death.  If  the  former,  of 
course  the  book  of  human  destiny  would  close  with  dying ; 
but  if  the  latter  be  true,  we  have  opened  out  to  our  view  the 
vast  fields  that  lie  beyond.  To  our  outward  senses,  death 
seems  very  much  like  the  end  of  man.  We  are  accustomed 
to  know  each  other  in  life  by  the  bodily  form,  to  recognize 
each  other  by  the  senses  of  sight  and  hearing.  But  sickness 
comes,  the  body  wastes  away,  the  voice  becomes  feeble,  the 
eye  grows  dim,  and  finally  death  closes  the  scene.  And  it  does 
seem,  to  our  observing,  very  much  as  though  our  being  termi¬ 
nated  at  this  point ;  for  we  may  linger  never  so  fondly  over 
the  loved  clay,  but  there  is  no  response  to  our  tears,  no 
answer  to  our  questionings.  We  may  go  to  the  grave  where 
our  loved  ones  sleep,  and  hope  there  in  some  way  to  come 
into  communion  with  those  who  have  gone  before,  but  the 


I 


102  The  Origin  and  Destiny  of  Man . 

stillness  of  the  tomb  seems  only  to  mock  our  earnest  prayer. 
I  have  not  been  surprised  that  scientific  men,  especially,  find 
difficulty  in  believing  in  the  immortality  of  the  soul  —  men 
who  are  accustomed  to  dealing  with  material  things,  handling 
substances  that  are  constantly  changing  in  form  and  disap¬ 
pearing,  seeking  the  ultimate  source  of  life,  and  failing.  It  is 
not  surprising  that  to  such  men  difficulty  and  doubt  hang  over 
the  future ;  for  while  they  see  that  in  all  nature  life  continues, 
it  does  not  seem  to  be  the  same  life.  The  flowers  of  next 
Spring  will  take  the  place  of  these  that  now  bloom,  but  these 
flowers  will  bloom  no  more.  When  our  forests  have  gone 
down  under  the  weight  of  time,  others  will  take  their 
place,  but  they  will  not  be  those  that  now  give  us  shade.  It 
is  true  their  science  teaches  these  men  to  expect  a  continuance 
of  the  substances  that  compose  these  organisms.  A  tree  may 
be  burned  up,  but  there  is  so  much  that  escapes  in  vapor,  so 
much  in  smoke,  and  so  much  is  left  in  ashes.  We  can  tell 
where  it  has  gone,  but  the  tree  can  never  be  restored.  Look¬ 
ing  at  the  subject  from  this  standpoint,  while  scientific  men 
may  think  there  will  be  a  conservation  of  the  dust  of  our 
bodies,  a  conservation  of  their  vital  forces,  and  even  that  mind 
may  some  how  return  to  the  great  universe  of  truth,  yet  they 
find  difficulty  in  believing  in  the  continued  life  of  each  soul, 
in  the  continued  identity  of  our  being.  And  if  in  this  we  are 
to  be  disappointed,  if  we  are  to  lose  our  individuality  —  that 
which  in  a  peculiar  sense  makes  us  ourselves  —  then  we  can 
feel  but  little  interest  in  a  future  existence. 

I  want  to  look  as  closely  as  we  may  be  able  into  this  ques¬ 
tion,  and,  in  so  doing,  return  again  to  what  seems  to  be  the 


The  Immortality  of  the  Soul. 


103 


end  of  onr  being  in  the  dissolution  of  the  body,  and  see  if 
there  may  not  be,  even  in  our  dying,  evidence  that  will  help 
us.  If  we  would  grapple  successfully  with  a  subject  of  this 
kind,  we  must  come  under  the  conditions  of  its  truth.  It  is 
in  vain  that  men  will  try  to  debate  any  question  unless  they 
are  willing  to  yield  themselves  to  the  conditions  under  which 
that  question  must  be  studied.  If  a  man  would  study  music, 
he  must  cultivate  his  ear,  his  sense  of  time  and  tune.  If  he 
would  study  mathematics,  he  must  cultivate  his  reasoning 
powers.  And  so,  if  he  would  grapple  with  this  question,  he 
must  be  willing  to  look  closely  into  the  constitution  of  our 
being,  to  consider  occult  or  hidden  forces,  to  look  carefully 
within  and  deal  with  the  subjective.  Iam  fully  aware  of  the 
difficulty  encountered  here  by  people  who  live  largely  in  the 
senses.  To  their  mind  the  destruction  of  the  body  seems  like 
the  destruction  of  everything.  But  there  is  something  more 
than  body  about  us —  something  within  us  that  claims  owner¬ 
ship  of  the  body.  We  naturally  speak  of  “my  eye,”  “my 
head,”  “my  body,” — recognizing  a  proprietorship  that  does 
not  reside  in  the  body  itself.  It  is  not  the  physical  eye  that 
sees ;  it  serves  only  as  a  glass  through  which  we  look.  It  is 
not  the  ear  which  hears ;  it  is  not  the  brain,  the  simple  ner¬ 
vous  structure,  that  thinks.  There  is  something  back  of  these 
that  we  call  mind,  or  spirit.  It  is  this  that  we  are  to  look  for 
and  see  whether  the  change  we  call  dying  reaches  deep 
enough  to  uproot  it.  While  death  seems  to  cover  the  whole 
being,  there  are  many  cases  in  which  the  mental  and  spiritual 
power  seems  to  shine  out  to  the  last.  A  man  may  lose  any  or 
even  all  of  his  limbs,  and  yet  retain  his  consciousness.  The 


104 


The  Origin  and  Destiny  of  Man. 


body  may  be  wasted  with  sickness,  life  may  sink  down  into 
that  valley  of  stillness  where  a  breath  would  extinguish  it,  yet 
the  mind  may  remain  clear  and  strong  and  serene.  Yea,  it 
may  gather  strength  by  the  subsidence  of  that  which  is  mate¬ 
rial  ;  and  all  the  powers  of  the  spirit,  its  intuitions  of  God,  its 
faith  in  the  Supreme,  all  the  affectional  nature,  may  not  only 
survive,  but  be  intensified  a  hundred-fold.  No  love  equals 
the  love  which  the  dying  feel.  When  we  look  at  the  subject 
in  this  light,  it  would  seem  that  there  must  be  something 
on  which  we  can  hang  a  hope  of  life  beyond  the  grave. 
Bishop  Butler  takes  substantially  this  ground  in  the  proposi¬ 
tion  that  if  a  force  be  found  to  exist,  it  will  continue,  unless 
there  is  a  force  competent  to  its  destruction.  And  we  do  not 
find  death  to  be  that  which  destroys  the  life-principle. 

I  want  to  suggest  another  argument.  It  is  not  new,  and 
yet  it  is  weighty.  It  is  the  argument  founded  on  the  univer¬ 
sal  belief  of  our  race  in  the  continued  life  of  the  human  soul. 
The  strength  of  this  argument  is  this  :  We  consider  as  estab¬ 
lished  the  existence  of  a  Supreme  Being ;  that  mind  was 
made  for  truth  and  truth  for  mind.  Now,  if  we  find  that  a 
universal  belief  has  settled  down  on  our  race  in  all  ages  and 
conditions — universal,  though  not  equally  clear — covering  the 
great  fact  of  a  continued  life  after  death,  it  seems  impossible 
that  the  God  who  made  us  capable  of  thinking,  capable  of 
truth,  should  permit  the  race  to  dream  on,  age  after  age,  in  a 
delusion.  A  heathen  would  hold  that  whatever  is  the  univer¬ 
sal  belief  of  mankind  must  be  accounted  the  will  of  God. 

Alongside  of  this  argument  is  another  that  is  also  neither 
new  nor  original,  but  which  is  equally  weighty.  That  is  the 


The  Immortality  of  the  Soul. 


105 


universality  of  the  desire  for  immortality.  The  strength  of 
the  reasoning  here  is  that  w  here  there  is  a  permanent  longing 
and  desire,  there  is  something  in  the  natural  economy  of 
things  to  correspond  to  this  desire.  This  law  pervades  all 
nature.  We  have  the  example  of  the  desire  for  food  and 
drink,  and  nature  answering  it.  The  heart  is  made  to  love, 
and  the  love  of  other  hearts  responds.  Following  this  anal¬ 
ogy,  and  still  holding  to  the  primal  belief  that  a  God  of  jus¬ 
tice  reigns,  it  is  incredible  that  this,  the  strongest  desire  of 
our  nature,  should  not  be  realized.  It  is  not  stating  it  too 
strongly  to  say  that  if  this  desire  is  without  foundation  in 
fact,  the  Deity  mocks  man  in  planting  in  his  nature  intense 
longings  for  that  which  is  enduring,  yet  permitting  the  race, 
age  after  age,  to  go  down  to  death  in  utter  despair. 

I  want  to  advance,  in  connection  with  these,  an  argument 
that  I  do  not  remember  to  have  ever  seen  in  any  book  or  to 
have  ever  heard.  The  argument  is  this  :  that  the  same  rea¬ 
sons  which  led  to  the  creation  of  human  beings  will  demand 
their  continuance.  We  are  not  able  to  say  certainly  what  were 
the  reasons  in  the  Divine  Mind  that  led  to  the  creation  of  man. 
That  creation  might  have  been  the  outgrowth  of  the  univer¬ 
sal  love,  the  outgrowth  of  a  desire  to  create  beings  w ith  whom 
He  might  hold  communion  and  raise  to  the  realms  of  His  feel¬ 
ings,  and  ultimately  elevate  to  companionship  with  Himself. 
Whatever  those  reasons  might  have  been,  we  cannot  but  con¬ 
ceive  that  what  led  to  the  creation  of  man  would  in  some  way 
seek  to  perpetuate  man’s  being.  It  will  not  do  to  say  that 
God  is  a  mere  model-builder,  that  he  will  go  on  age  after  age 
simply  experimenting.  When  He  endows  humanity  with  the 


106 


The  Origin  and  Destiny  of  Man. 


crown  of  mind  and  spirit,  when  it  comes  to  that  point  where 
that  which  is  distinctive  in  man  is  given  and  to  love  for  his  fel¬ 
low-man,  belief  in  his  own  immortal  destiny,  and  faith  in 
God — in  all  reason  we  are  bound  to  the  conclusion  that  the 
cause  which  led  to  our  creation  will  continue  to  influence  the 
Divine  Being  to  our  preservation. 

We  may  offer  another  argument,  not  new,  drawn  from  the 
pleadings  of  morality,  the  pleadings  of  the  heart-life.  This 
world  is  certainly  a  moral  battle-field,  where  through  all  the 
centuries  truth  has  been  pitted  against  error,  reason  against 
passion,  justice  against  injustice.  The  whole  history  of  man¬ 
kind  shows  that  the  battle  has  been  a  tedious  one.  The  lines 
have  wavered,  and  at  no  time  has  the  final  result  been  certain 
except  to  the  eye  of  faith.  Now  I  would  take  my  stand  by 
the  side  of  every  patriot  who  ever  loved  his  country,  by  the 
side  of  every  martyr  who  ever  died  for  truth,  by  the  side  of 
every  teacher  who  ever  taught,  by  the  side  of  every  minister 
who  ever  preached,  by  the  side  of  every  missionary  who  ever 
went  forth  to  heathen  lands,  by  the  side  of  those  who  have 
wiped  away  the  tear  of  sorrow,  who  have  tried  to  lift  up  the 
fallen,  who  have  sat  by  the  bedside  of  the  dying  and  tried  to 
push  back  the  shadows  of  night — in  the  name  of  every  one 
who  has  ever  worked  or  thought  or  suffered  for  humanity,  do 
I  claim  that  there  must  be  some  future  where  the  results  of 
this  great  struggle  are  to  be  crowned  with  a  compensation 
beyond  what  is  reached  here  ;  a  future  where  the  uneven 
scales  of  justice  in  this  life  may  find  their  balance,  where  man 
shall  be  dealt  with  according  to  his  merits.  Taking  our  stand 
by  the  heart-life,  I  ask,  in  the  name  of  reason,  is  all  the  long- 


The  Immortality  of  the  Soul. 


107 


mg  in  human  souls  to  be  left  out  ?  Is  all  the  affection  of 
this  world,  that  has  clung  about  life  as  the  vine  about  the  oak, 
to  go  for  naught  ? 

I  may  offer  one  argument  more,  and  then  pass  to  another 
olass  of  reasons,  and  that  is  the  utter  unreasonableness  of 
immortality  not  being  true.  I  will  state  the  lines  upon  which 
this  travels  briefly.  Here  we  have  space  ;  we  call  it  unbound¬ 
ed.  We  have  duration  ;  we  say  it  is  unending.  Here  we  have 
our  little  earth,  and  about  us  the  worlds  composing  our  sys¬ 
tem,  and  rising  above  these  other  systems  of  worlds,  till  you 
finally  come  to  the  universe  system.  Here  we  have  the 
human  mind  beginning  first  with  its  a,  b,  c,  with  its  1,  2,  3  ; 
traveling  out  along  the  lines  of  reading  and  reasoning,  along 
the  lines  of  inquiry,  along  the  pathways  of  truth.  Now,  in 
an  ordinary  lifetime,  in  which  one-third  is  given  to  sleep  and 
another  third  to  work,  these  lives  have  grappled  with  some  of 
the  problems  of  the  world  ;  these  bodies  have  sailed  over 
some  of  its  seas,  and  climbed  some  of  its  mountains ;  these 
minds  have  looked  around  and  learned  something  of  science, 
a  little  of  language,  have  pored  over  a  few  pages  of  history, 
and  have  peered  anxiously  into  the  great  future  beyond  ;  we 
open  the  Bible,  and  learn  a  little  of  divine  truth ;  we  work 
and  study,  and  these  are  the  results  we  reach  against  we  are 
sixty  or  seventy  years  of  age.  Now,  if  there  be  no  immortal¬ 
ity,  we  have  this  amazing  spectacle  :  lines  of  truth  going  out 
forever,  ^et  the  mind  that  shows  capacity  to  grapple  with 
truth,  that  builds  its  scaffolding  to  the  stars,  weighs  the  plan¬ 
ets,  measures  their  distances,  and  marks  their  orbits — the 
mind  capable  of  grappling  with  these  mighty  truths  just  get- 


108 


The  Origin  and  Destiny  of  Man. 


ting  a  start,  just  reaching  a  point  where  life  seems  valuable, 
then  dropping  down  into  non-existence  !  When  a  Humboldt, 
a  Newton  or  a  Descartes  dies,  a  child  is  born  ;  it  travels  out 
to  the  point  of  knowledge  they  reached,  and  it  dies.  Another 
child  is  born  ;  it  journeys  to  the  farthest  outpost  of  learning, 
and  it  dies.  The  process  goes  on  through  endless  generations. 
The  human  mind  is  ceaselessly  working  out  the  problems  of 
health,  of  science,  of  society  and  government  ;  the  whole 
world  is  struggling  in  its  heart-life  ;  yet  we  only  live  lives  that 
come  up  to  a  certain  point  where  existence  ends  in  nothing  1 
In  the  name  of  reason,  I  say  it  cannot  be. 

I  now  shall  advance  a  few  arguments  of  a  different  charac  - 
ter.  The  first  of  these  is  the  empirical  testimony  on  the 
subject.  I  cannot  of  course  claim  for  this  the  same  weight 
in  all  minds.  By  empirical  testimony,  I  refer  to  the  experi¬ 
ences  of  thousands  and  millions  of  persons, —  experiences  of 
a  spiritual  character,  experiences  that  touch  the  heart-life,  the 
spirit-life,  for  there  are  millions  on  earth  who  will  tell  you  that 
they  have  tasted  the  worn  of  God,  that  they  have  felt  the 
powers  of  the  world  to  come,  that  they  have  felt  and  do  feel 
that  they  are  heirs  of  God  and  joint-heirs  with  Jesus  Christ, 
that  they  do  feel  that  they  are  dwellers  of  the  world  to  come 
as  well  as  of  the  earthly  world.  They  feel  it  must  be  so  in  the 
light  of  the  divine  experience  that  has  come  to  them.  As  a 
rule,  those  who  have  come  into  deep  religious  experience 
have  no  difficulty  in  spanning  the  gulf  between  this  and  the 
future. 

There  is  another  class  of  evidence  that  I  call  phenomenal. 
To  this  I  ask  you  to  give  only  such  weight  as  you  may  think 


The  Immortality  of  the  Soul. 


109 


it  entitled  to.  What  I  mean  by  phenomenal  testimony  is  that 
testimony  which  seems  to  come  from  the  life  beyond.  We 
might  say,  had  there  been  no  accumulation  of  literature  and 
history  on  this  subject,  that  we  could  hope  the  spirits  of  the 
departed  would  in  some  way  make  themselves  present  to  the 
living.  But  history  and  literature  abound  in  testimony  of 
this  character.  I  think  it  is  Carpenter’s  Mental  Physiology 
which  gives  a  case  in  point.  The  mother  of  an  idiot  son  died 
when  the  latter  was  about  three  years  old.  The  son  lived 
until  about  the  age  of  thirty.  He  was  utterly  without  the 
power  of  reason  or  memory.  He  was  taken  sick,  and  brought 
to  the  point  of  dying.  Just  a  few  moments  before  he  died, 
he  seemed  to  wake  to  conscious  intelligence.  He  looked  up 
and  said  :  “  Oh,  mother  !  mother !  How  beautiful !  how 

beautiful  1  ”  It  would  seem  that  a  distinct  image  must  have 
been  presented  to  the  vision  of  the  unfortunate  young  man — 
an  image  that  could  not  have  been  produced  by  any  faculty 
of  reason,  or  brought  up  by  memory,  for  these  were  a  hope¬ 
less  wreck. 

I  will  relate  a  case  that  has  fallen  under  my  own  observa¬ 
tion — the  experience  of  one  of  the  most  intelligent  physicians 
in  Iowa.  I  have  known  him  over  twenty  years  as  a  true,  hon¬ 
orable  man.  He  is  one  of  the  best  scholars  and  most  acute  ob¬ 
servers  in  the  State.  He  grew  up  a  materialist,  and  remained 
a  skeptic  many  years,  and  had  often  taken  part  in  debates  on 
the  question  of  immortality,  always  holding  the  negative  side. 
He  was  sitting  in  his  office  a  few  years  ago,  about  nine  o’clock 
in  the  evening.  He  sat  there  reflecting,  the  lights  burning 
low.  All  at  once  his  father  appeared  before  him.  He  said 


110  The  Origin  and  .Destiny  of  Man. 

he  brushed  his  eyes,  thinking  it  was  some  kind  of  apparition, 
and  he  looked  again,  and  his  father  stood  there.  He  sum¬ 
moned  all  his  intelligence  and  all  the  personal  consciousness 
which  he  possessed,  and  his  father  stood  there.  He  still 
wondered  if  it  were  not  some  illusion,  and  he  blew  out  the 
light  and  stepped  outside  the  door,  and  his  father  stood  there. 
He  went  home  ;  his  wife  noticed  there  was  something  unusual 
the  matter  with  him,  and  inquired  the  cause,  but  he  felt  re¬ 
luctant  to  tell  her  at  once.  Next  day  a  telegram  reached  him. 
He  knew  what  it  was  before  he  opened  it.  It  was  the  an¬ 
nouncement  of  his  father’s  death,  a  few  hours  before  his  form 
had  appeared  in  the  office  the  evening  before.  There  are 
some  who  may  say:  “All  nonsense!”  “All  superstition!” 
But  I  say  this  to  you  as  an  honest  man  :  If  I  am  not  to  be¬ 
lieve  the  testimony  of  the  senses  of  men  as  intelligent  as  any 
one  here,  how  am  I  to  believe  anything  ?  I  am  quite  willing 
to  set  it  down  as  something  I  cannot  understand  ;  but  to  deny 
it,  I  dare  not.  The  impression  on  the  mind  of  that  man  was 
so  great  that  he  began  a  life  of  prayer,  and  is  now  an  earnest 
member  of  a  Christian  church.  If  you  will  go  down  into  the 
inner  life  of  many  of  the  most  prayerful  souls,  you  will  find 
them  walking  the  earth  in  the  sweet  consciousness  of  the  com¬ 
panionship  of  departed  loved  ones.  Some  may  call  this  spirit¬ 
ualism.  I  do  not  care  what  you  call  it.  The  Bible  is  full  of 
a  pure  spiritualism.  It  records  instances  where  the  spirits 
of  the  departed  have  appeared  to  those  on  earth.  In  our 
efforts  to  get  away  from  what  is  gross  and  sensual  in  modern 
spiritualism,  we  have  possibly  drifted  from  the  Bible  and  from 
that  which  is  a  happy  and  holy  conviction  to  thousands. 


The  Immortality  of  the  Soul. 


Ill 


Bishop  Clarke,  of  our  own  church,  who  died  a  few  years  ago 
in  Cincinnati — a  patient,  scholarly,  devout  man — said  to  his 
wife  and  grown-up  children,  as  they  gathered  about  his  death¬ 
bed,  that  this  was  very  present  to  him,  that  he  should  still  be 
permitted  to  be  near  them  after  death,  that  even  when  they 
might  not  know  it  he  should  be  with  them. 

This  phenomenal  evidence  is  something  which  comes  with 
a  peculiarly  convincing  power  to  the  minds  that  are  favored 
with  it.  Some  how  truth  has  been  advanced,  in  this  material 
age,  even  in  the  grosser  forms  of  the  spiritualism  of  our  time, 
and  the  souls  that  are  sensitive  to  the  sweet  influences  from 
beyond  have  felt  its  power.  We  are  nearing  the  time,  I  think, 
when  the  river  that  flows  between  this  life  and  that  of  the 
future  will  indeed  be  very  narrow,  when  the  gulf  will  be 
almost  bridged,  when  millions  will  walk  this  earth  in  the 
sweet  companionship  of  the  departed,  and  God  and  the  future 
will  be  as  imminent  and  real  as  are  the  things  of  the  present 
world. 

I  beg  your  attention,  for  a  moment,  to  the  argument  based 
on  the  Scriptures.  The  Bible  does  not  usually  argue  ques¬ 
tions  by  taking  them  up  topically,  and  enforcing  them  point 
by  point,  and  the  Old  Testament  is  not  luminous  on  this  ques¬ 
tion.  The  Jewish  economy  related  quite  largely  to  the  affairs 
of  this  world.  Yet  there  is  a  reasoning  by  examples  as  well 
as  words  that  points  with  unmistakable  language  to  a  future 
state.  Take  the  old  idea  of  the  patriarchs  being  gathered  to 
their  fathers.  That  does  not  mean  that  they  should  be  gath¬ 
ered  to  the  dust  of  the  dead,  but  to  the  living  spirits  of  those 
who  had  gone  before.  Take  the  language  of  Job  :  “  Though 


112 


The  Origin  and  Destiny  of  Man. 


the  worms  destroy  this  body,  yet  in  my  flesh  shall  I  see  God.’' 
Take  the  beautiful  words  of  David  :  “In  the  valley  and 
shadow  of  death  I  will  fear  no  evil ;  I  shall  dwell  in  the  house 
of  the  Lord  forever.”  In  the  New  Testament,  in  the  14th 
chapter  of  St.  John,  our  Saviour  says  :  “Let  not  your  heart 
be  troubled.  Ye  believe  in  God  ;  believe  also  in  me.  In  my 
Father’s  house  are  many  mansions  ;  if  it  were  not  so,  I  would 
have  told  you.  I  go  to  prepare  a  place  for  you.  And  if  I 
go  to  prepare  a  place  for  you,  I  will  come  again  to  receive  you 
unto  myself.”  “If  it  were  not  so,  I  would  have  told  you.” 
The  assurance  comes  to  me  with  a  frankness,  a  candor,  an 
honesty,  that  exalts  the  great  Teacher  in  my  thought.  For  the 
whole  world  has  been  reasoning  on  this  question  since  the 
beginning  of  recorded  time.  Socrates  discoursed  of  it  for 
hours  before  he  drank  his  poison,  strengthening  his  own 
heart  and  the  heart  of  humanity  by  writing  or  dictating  his 
immortal  Phsedo.  But  while  humanity  approached  the  sub¬ 
ject  from  this  side  with  all  its  reason,  its  love  and  its  tears, 
the  immortal  Teacher  comes  to  us  from  the  other  shore  and 
says  :  “  If  it  were  not  so,  I  would  have  told  you  ',  immortality 
is  a  fact.”  Above  all  other  things  in  the  character  of  Christ 
stands  his  perfect  loyalty  to  truth.  If  the  denial  of  immor¬ 
tality  had  cut  the  last  thread  that  sustained  millions  of  hearts, 
he  would  not  have  hesitated  had  truth  required  it.  In  the 
twenty-second  chapter  of  Acts,  where  there  was  a  dispute 
between  the  Sadducees  and  Pharisees,  we  have  the  evidence 
of  Paul.  The  Sadducees  believed  neither  in  angels  nor  in 
spirits.  The  Pharisees  believed  in  both.  In  this  discussion 
Paul  says;  “I  am  a  Pharisee.”  That  is  to  say:  I  believe 


The  Immortality  of  the  Soul . 


113 


on  this  point  as  the  Pharisees  believe  ;  they  believe  in  angels 
and  spirits,  and  I  believe  in  them. 

Or  you  may  take  the  argument  of  our  text,  one  of  the  most 
beautiful  and  philosophical  in  the  Bible:  “God  is  not  the 
God  of  the  dead,  but  of  the  living.”  If  God  were  the  God 
of  the  dead,  then  death  must  be  the  destiny  of  every  one,  and 
into  its  dark  vortex  God  himself  must  ultimately  fall.  I  want 
you  to  get  the  full  force  of  this  statement,  for  there  is  philos¬ 
ophy  in  the  argument,  and  it  is  the  philosophy  that  runs 
through  the  Bible.  “God  is  the  God  of  the  living.”  Being 
the  living  God,  He  is  the  fountain  of  life,  and  while  He  lives 
His  children  shall  live  also — live  after  the  rolling  centuries 
shall  have  completed  their  long  cycles.  Being  the  God  of 
the  living,  He  gathers  life  unto  Himself,  and  not  death.  Like 
music  on  the  sweet  morning  air,  souls  are  evermore  going  up 
to  their  fountain,  going  up  to  the  source  of  their  being.  God 
is  the  God  of  the  living ;  the  God  of  Abraham  and  Isaac  and 
Jacob,  who  have  been  dead  thousands  of  years — dead  in  the 
earthly  sense,  yet  living  unto  Him.  As  I  look  into  your 
faces,  and  think  of  the  many  hearts  longing  for  the  life  to 
come,  I  am  glad  that  immortality  is  not  only  a  faith  but  a 
great  fact.  I  am  glad  that  while  the  snows  of  winter  may  lie 
over  the  graves  of  loved  ones,  their  spirits  are  up  with  God. 
I  am  glad  that  life  is  the  ultimatum  of  the  race,  and  not 
death.  I  am  glad  that  in  this  world  of  graves  we  may  walk 
along  the  shore  of  the  stream  that  divides  time  from  eternity, 
and  say,  Our  friends  are  just  over  there.  Yes — 

“Over  the  river  they  beckon  to  me, 

Loved  ones  who ’ve  crossed  to  the  farther  side ; 


8 


114 


The  Origin  and  Destiny  of  Man. 


The  gleam  of  their  snowy  robes  I  see, 

But  their  voices  are  lost  in  the  dashing  tide. 

There ’s  one  with  ringlets  of  sunny  gold, 

And  eyes  the  reflection  of  heaven’s  own  blue; 

He  crossed  in  the  twilight  gray  and  cold, 

And  the  pale  mist  hid  him  from  mortal  view. 

We  saw  not  the  angels  who  met  him  there, 

The  gates  of  the  city  we  could  not  see ; 

But  over  the  river,  over  the  river, 

My  brother  stands  waiting  to  welcome  me. 

“Over  the  river  the  boatman  pale 

Carried  another,  our  household  pet ; 

Her  brown  curls  waved  in  the  gentle  gale; 

Barling  Minnie !  I  see  her  yet. 

She  crossed  on  her  bosom  her  dimpled  hands, 

And  fearlessly  entered  the  phantom  bark; 

We  felt  it  glide  from  the  silver  sands, 

And  all  our  sunshine  grew  strangely  dark. 

We  know  she  is  safe  on  the  other  shore, 

Where  all  the  ransomed  and  angels  be ; 

Over  the  river,  the  mystic  river, 

Our  household  pet  is  waiting  for  me. 

“And  I  sometimes  think,  when  the  sunset’s  gold 
Is  flushing  river,  and  hill,  and  shore, 

That  I  shall  one  day  stand  by  the  water  cold, 

And  list  for  the  sound  of  the  boatman’s  oar  ; 

I  shall  catch  a  gleam  of  the  snowy  sail, 

I  shall  hear  the  boat  as  it  nears  the  strand; 

I  shall  pass,  with  the  boatman  pale  and  cold, 

To  the  better  shore  of  the  spirit  land. 

I  shall  know  the  loved  who  have  gone  before, 

And  joyfully  sweet  will  the  meeting  be, 

When  over  the  river,  the  peaceful  river, 

The  angel  of  death  shall  carry  me.” 

God  grant  that  this  immortality  may  be  yours  and  mine  im 
the  heavenly  world. 


IX. 


THE  INTERMEDIATE  STATE. 


But  man  dieth,  and  wasteth  away  :  yea,  man  giveth  up  the  ghost, 
and  where  is  he? — Job,  xiv,  10. 

OUR  present  mode  of  being  is  denominated  life,  and  in 
this  we  have  three  forms  of  consciousness,  or  con¬ 
sciousness  under  three  expressions.  We  have  what  is 
called  sense-consciousness,  or  the  consciousness  that  comes 
to  us  through  the  medium  of  the  senses  ;  as  what  we  hear, 
what  we  see,  -what  we  feel ,  a  form  of  life  that  opens  out 
through  the  senses  to  the  outer  world.  Then  we  have  what 
may  be  called  self-consciousness  ;  or  perhaps  it  might  more 
properlv  be  called  mind-consciousness  —  the  consciousness 
that  does  not  realize  itself  in  looking  outward,  but  finds  its 
being  by  introspection;  that  which  wre  rest  upon  when  we 
turn  the  mind  within.  In  addition  to  these*  we  have  what 
may  be  called  God-consciousness,  the  consciousness  of  the 
divine,  that  by  which  we  are  impelled  to  goodness,  that 
which  looks  upward  and  heavenward.  In  other  words,  in 
this  mysterious  trinity  of  life  we  have  in  sense-consciousness 
the  complement  of  om  bodily  powers,  in  mind-consciousness 
the  complement  of  the  mental  powers,  in  spirit-consciousness 
the  complement  of  the  spiritual  powers.  The  change  spoken 


116 


The  Origin  and  Destiny  of  Man. 


of  in  our  text,  which  we  call  death,  takes  away  from  us  the 
first  form  of  consciousness.  In  other  words,  death  is  the  dis¬ 
solution  of  bodily  conditions,  of  the  x^owers  of  the  senses ;  a 
severance  of  the  relations  which  the  mind  in  its  x>resent  state 
holds  with  outward  and  material  things.  It  is  affirmed  in  the 
text  that  “man  dieth,  and  wasteth  away.”  This  change 
called  dying  and  wasting  away,  so  far  as  the  body  is  con¬ 
cerned,  is  the  most  absolute  we  can  imagine.  There  is  in 
death  not  only  a  cessation  of  the  bodily  functions,  a  loss  of 
the  x>owers  by  which  life  is  maintained,  but  there  is  a  wasting 
away,  an  utter  dissolution  after  death  of  the  particles  that 
wrere  held  together  by  the  vital  principle.  In  our  last  dis¬ 
course  we  attempted  to  show  that  the  real  self,  that  about 
which  the  inquiry  in  the  text  started — beyond  the  wasting 
away,  “where  is  he  ?” — that  this  self  is  not  affected  by  death, 
but  lives  on.  Our  inquiry  now  shall  be  in  reference  to  the 
mode  of  life  of  the  disembodied  spirit.  It  would  be  a  very 
great  gratification  were  I  able  to  sx>eak  with  assurance  on  this 
subject.  It  would  be  no  ordinary  pleasure  could  I  x>art  the 
veil,  and  reveal  to  you  just  what  the  spirit-life  is.  But  I 
cannot,  in  truthfulness,  sx>eak  to  you  on  this  subject  with  any 
great  degree  of  definiteness  or  certainty. 

In  the  first  xdace,  I  shall  refer  to  the  literature  in  regard  to 
what  is  called  in  the  language  of  theology  the  Intermediate 
State — the  state  of  the  disembodied  spirit  before  its  re-invest¬ 
iture  with  the  organism  or  body  of  the  spirit-world.  It  is 
interesting  to  go  back  and  trace  out  the  thought  of  the  early 
ages  in  reference  to  spirit-life.  There  was  among  the  old 
Egyptians  the  general  thought  that  the  spirit  did  not  die. 


The  Intermediate  State. 


117 


But  in  those  early  times,  in  grappling  with  these  subtle  ques¬ 
tions,  they  seem  not  to  have  reached  very  definite  conclusions. 
The  nearest  that  the  ancient  Egyptian  mind  came  to  a  con¬ 
ception  in  reference  to  the  disembodied  spirit  was  that  it  was 
something  like  a  shadow,  an  indefinite  spirit-form  of  some 
kind,  and  they  thought  that  this  spirit-form  went  downward 
instead  of  upward.  They  seemed  to  think  of  it  under  the 
idea  of  its  having  an  underground  or  cavernous  existence  — 
possibly  something  that  corresjmnded  to  the  Hebrew  idea  of 
sheol  and  the  Greek  idea  of  hades  —  meaning  a  dark  or  unseen 
world.  Beyond  this  there  was  the  idea,  possibly  originating 
also  in  Egyj)t,  and  developed  more  fully  in  Greek  philosophy, 
of  the  transmigration  of  souls,  called  the  doctrine  of  metem¬ 
psychosis.  This  doctrine  comes  out  in  the  Greek  philosophy 
under  the  teachings  of  Pythagoras,  that  the  spirit  went  into 
some  form  in  the  animal  creation,  and  that  the  form  which  it 
entered  corresponded  to  the  character  of  the  spirit  in  this  life. 
If  a  man  were  of  a  vicious  nature,  his  spirit  went  into  some 
vicious  animal.  If  he  were  low  and  coarse,  it  went  into 
something  of  that  kind.  If  he  w^ere  gentle  and  refined,  the 
spirit  -would  possibly  enter  something  of  a  lamb-like  or  dove- 
like  nature.  If  he  were  soaring  and  ambitious,  the  spirit 
might  dwell  in  the  eagle.  If  he  were  shrewd  and  crafty,  it 
might  live  in  the  fox.  Pythagoras  did  not  look  upon  this 
doctrine  as  the  most  pleasant  thing  to  contemplate,  and  he 
sought  some  means  by  which  the  period  of  the  soul’s  trans¬ 
migration  might  be  shortened.  He  went  so  far  as  to  teach 
his  followers  that  if  they  w-ould  observe  the  rules  of  life  he 
would  lay  down,  they  might  possibly  escape  this  transmigra- 


118 


The  Origin  and  Destiny  of  Man. 


tion  altogether,  and  might  at  death  rise  at  once  to  some 
degree  of  communion  with  the  Infinite.  Plato  taught  that 
there  were  ten  changes  in  the  condition  of  the  soul  after 
death,  and  that  it  lived  in  each  of  these  conditions  a  thousand 
years,  making  ten  thousand  years  of  the  journey  of  the 
human  spirit  in  some  animal  form. 

It  is  difficult  to  say  on  what  ground  of  reason  the  ancients 
reached  these  strange  conclusions.  It  is  difficult  to  conceive 
of  the  human  spirit  leaving  the  body  and  taking  possession 
of  some  animal  —  toiling  all  day  as  a  horse,  or  roaming  the 
woods  as  a  deer.  I  think  it  is  Baring  Gould,  who  suggests 
that  it  may  have  grown  out  of  the  idea  of  man’s  distant  sep¬ 
aration  from  the  divine ;  that  he  possibly  had  to  go  through 
some  form  of  preparation  or  punishment,  to  atone  for  the 
wrongs  done  in  this  life.  If  the  doctrine  of  Evolution,  as 
held  by  many  in  our  day,  be  true,  then  the  doctrine  of  the 
transmigration  of  souls  would  not  seem  so  unnatural,  or 
unreasonable.  For  if  man  is  evolved  from  the  brute,  and 
fails  while  in  the  human  form  to  reach  up  and  take  hold  of 
that  which  is  above,  fails  to  develop  his  spirit-powers,  to 
reach  and  stand  in  spirit-life ;  if  he,  on  the  other  hand,  tends 
downward  in  his  nature,  developing  only  the  animal  that  is 
within  him,  then  there  may  be  a  law  of  retrogression,  by 
which  he  is  remanded,  or  sinks  back  again,  to  that  from 
which  he  came,  or  to  the  animal  condition.  From  this  second 
animal  life  he  might  gradually  rise  to  the  human  again  ;  or, 
more  likely,  abide  under  the  diminishing  power  of  retro¬ 
gression,  and  possibly  lose  conscious  identity,  or  sink  to 
non-existence. 


The  Intermediate  State. 


119 


Then  there  is  the  doctrine  of  the  sleep  of  souls,  which 
holds  that  when  the  body  dies  the  spirit  goes  into  a  sleep,  or 
unconscious  state,  and  will  have  no  conscious  life  till  it  is 
raised  in  the  resurrection.  There  is  also,  in  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church,  the  doctrine  of  purgatory  —  a  doctrine  that 
provides  for  the  spirit  not  only  a  state  which  is  intermediate, 
but  a  place  that  is  intermediate  betwreen  what  we  call  heaven 
and  what  we  call  hell.  This  doctrine  was  authoritatively 
affirmed  by  the  Council  of  Florence  in  the  fifteenth  century, 
and  later  was  reaffirmed  by  the  Council  of  Trent.  The  doc¬ 
trine  is  substantially  this  :  that  the  soul,  after  leaving  this 
world,  enters  a  state  where  it  undergoes  a  process  of  purifica¬ 
tion  before  going  to  the  realms  of  bliss.  They  teach,  in 
addition  to  this  doctrine  of  purgatory,  that  souls  in  that  state 
may  be  reached  and  affected  favorably  by  the  prayers  of  the 
church,  and  by  the  alms-giving  of  their  friends  and  relatives. 
The  Episcopal  Church  holds  to  a  doctrine  somewhat  similar 
to  that  of  purgatory,  in  the  sense  that  the  spirit  dwells  in  a 
state  of  liberation  for  a  kind  of  strengthening  or  purification 
that  it  cannot  receive  in  the  body.  I  should  be  very  sorry  to 
misrepresent  either  the  Catholic  or  Episcopal  Church,  and 
these  statements  of  their  views  are  chiefly  from  the  readings 
of  other  years,  and  since  my  late  illness  I  have  not  felt  like 
looking  up  the  matter  anew.  My  impression  is  that  the 
Episcopal  Church  holds  to  this  idea  :  that  the  soul,  after 
dwelling  in  the  sensuous  organism  of  this  life,  is  permitted, 
in  this  intermediate  state,  to  get  a  certain  strength,  or  devel¬ 
opment,  to  make  it  practically  safe  for  it  to  take  on  the  bodily 
condition  in  the  resurrection. 


120 


The  Origin  and  Destiny  of  Man. 


I  have  thus  looked  at  some  of  the  general  ideas  that  have 
obtained  on  this  subject.  It  seems  from  the  Scriptures,  also, 
that  there  is  some  such  state  as  we  may  properly  term  inter¬ 
mediate,  loi  they  do  not  seem  to  favor  the  idea  that  the  soul 
sleeps  or  dies  with  the  body.  They  rather  seem  to  teach  that 
there  is  a  life  after  the  dying  and  before  the  rising.  This  is 
illustrated  in  the  case  of  Christ,  for  it  is  not  to  be  supposed 
that  the  period  between  his  crucifixion  and  his  resurrection 
was  passed  in  a  state  of  non-existence.  The  thought  of  the 
church  has  ever  been  that  this  was  a  period  of  consciousness 
of  some  kind,  a  view  supported  by  the  words  of  Christ  him¬ 
self  to  the  thief  on  the  cross  :  “Verily  I  say  unto  thee,  this 
day  shalt  thou  be  with  me  in  paradise.”  It  seems  also  to 
have  been  the  thought  of  Paul  that  to  be  absent  from  the 
body  was  to  be  present  w'ith  the  Lord. 

Let  us  now  pass  to  some  reflections  of  a  general  character, 
for  the  mind  of  man  is  strangely  inquisitive.  The  first  is  in 
reference  to  the  probable  appearance  of  spirit-life  —  not  as  it 
may  appear  to  mortal  eyes,  but  the  appearance  that  is  real 
and  present  to  the  spirits  themselves.  Probably  few  of  us 
have  thought  upon  the  form  of  what  we  call  mind.  We  read¬ 
ily  fall  into  views  and  feelings  in  reference  to  the  body,  as 
that  is  visible  and  real  to  the  outward  senses.  And  if  we  rea¬ 
son  on  the  matter  from  analogy,  it  wrill  not  seem  improbable 
that  the  human  soul  should  have  definite  form.  Our  nervous 
system  is  distributed  throughout  the  entire  body,  but  always 
conforms  to  the  shape  of  the  human  figure.  So  likewise  the 
veins  and  arteries.  Even  the  human  skeleton  preserves  an 
outline  of  the  body.  To  return  now  to  the  mind.  I  see  no 


The  Intermediate  State . 


121 


reason  for  supposing  that  the  mind  and  spirit  of  man  are  not 
governed  as  to  form  by  the  same  law.  I  cannot  see  why  my 
mind  may  not  reside  in  my  fingers  as  well  as  in  my  head.  I 
cannot  see  why  the  mind  itself  may  not  have  body-form  ;  nor 
why  there  is  not,  in  this  body  of  ours,  a  mental  and  spiritual 
being,  having  a  real  form,  corresponding  to  that  in  •which  we 
dwell.  Indeed,  I  suppose  it  is  mind  and  spirit  that  give 
bodily  form.  This  is  the  doctrine  of  the  New  or  Sweden- 
borgian  Church.  I  do  not  see  that  it  is  contradicted  by  any¬ 
thing  in  the  teachings  of  physiology  or  metaphysics,  or  by 
anything  in  the  Scriptures.  "Wherever  the  Scriptures  tell  of 
the  coming  to  earth  of  the  spirits  of  the  departed,  the  spirits 
appear  in  bodily  form.  So,  also,  the  angels,  which  are  possi¬ 
bly  spirits  of  the  departed  —  they,  too,  appear  in  bodily  form. 

I  would  call  attention  to  another  fact :  that  when  life  grows 
feeble  in  the  body,  and  the  sense-perception  begins  to  fade, 
there  is  a  turning  inward  of  the  mind  upon  itself  —  an  inten¬ 
sifying  of  the  mental  self.  I  have  seen  this  illustrated  in  the 
case  of  persons  who  have  lived  largely  in  the  appetites  being 
suddenly  smitten  with  sickness.  When  such  persons  find  the 
outer  world  fading  from  their  view,  finding  no  pleasure  in 
eating  and  drinking,  and  unable  to  pursue  the  ordinary  avoca¬ 
tions  of  life  —  these  persons  will  often  experience  what  seems 
to  be  a  sinking  in  from  the  outer  world  ;  their  thoughts  will 
be  turned  inward  *  their  spiritual  natures  will  become  inten¬ 
sified  ;  they  will  become  alarmed,  and  will  pray.  Then  if,  on 
experiencing  a  recovery  of  health,  they  fall  away  from  this 
spiritual  exaltation,  many  people  will  say  they  were  not  sin¬ 
cere.  But  I  can  conceive  how  it  is  that  such  men,  their  life 


122 


The  Origin  and  Destiny  of  Man. 


driven  in  npon  itself,  find  themselves  standing  face  to  face 
with  their  mental  consciousness,  face  to  face  with  God.  And 
it  is  not  strange  that  when  thoughtless,  sinning  men  are 
brought  to  this  point,  they  should  call  out  to  God  for  mercy. 
Then,  if  health  is  restored,  and  they  find  the  greater  portion 
of  their  life  again  residing  in  the  senses,  they  forget  the  vivid 
spiritual  experience  they  had  in  sickness.  This  seems  to  me 
to  point  by  analogy  to  the  fact  that  when  the  body  is  thrown 
off,  the  spirit  will  have  an  intensified  perception  of  spiritual 
truth,  and  will  be  in  a  sense  shut  up  to  itself. 

I  cannot  think  there  is  any  foundation  for  a  belief  quite 
generally  entertained  that  some  great  change  is  wrought  upon 
the  spirit  itself  in  dying.  Looking  upon  death  as  simply 
touching  the  body,  and  releasing  the  spiritual  being,  I  cannot 
think  that  it  in  any  sense  affects  our  natures  excejot  to  inten¬ 
sify  them.  It  does  not  make  an  uneducated  man  a  scholar ; 
it  does  not  give  an  inexperienced  man  experience  ;  it  does  not 
give  a  coarse  nature  culture  and  refinement.  The  miser 
remains  a  miser,  the  lecher  lustful,  the  liar  untrue.  Death 
leaves  a  man  just  as  it  finds  him.  The  birth  out  of  the  bodily 
condition  does  not  in  the  least  affect  the  character  of  the  man. 
It  is  only  a  step  out  of  the  conditions  of  this  life.  It  is  a 
change,  but  not  a  complete  revolution  from  the  low  condi¬ 
tions  of  earth  to  the  highest  conditions  of  the  future. 

There  is  another  feeling  in  the  human  mind,  that  is  possi¬ 
bly  founded  on  an  old  pagan  idea — a  dread  that  some  persons 
have  of  dying,  not  only  of  the  physical  suffering,  but  a  dread 
to  face  the  change,  a  dread  to  pass  the  narrow  gate.  One 
might  naturally  dread  this  if  he  supposed  he  were  to  go  into 


The  Intermediate  State. 


123 


some  dark  cavernous  region,  or  to  enter  into  some  animal.  He 
might  well  shrink  from  a  deep  sleep,  undisturbed  even  by  a 
dream.  But  if  we  are  Christians,  if  we  abide  in  Christ,  if  we 
cling  to  the  idea  that  Christ  has  abolished  death,  that  he  has 
removed  its  sting,  then  there  is  nothing  left  of  dying  but  the 
simple  passage  from  one  shore  to  the  other.  In  most  cases 
the  suffering  of  the  dying  is  far  less  than  is  generally  sup¬ 
posed.  I  have  been  at  the  point,  as  perhaps  many  of  you 
have,  where  the  suffering  of  death  would  have  been  far  less 
than  the  tedium  of  recovery.  Let  us  then  take  the  human 
spirit  at  the  point  of  its  journeying  down  to  the  death  of  the 
body,  and  try  to  get  all  the  light  that  is  possible  on  the 
change.  There  is,  first,  a  sinking  down,  a  wasting  away,  the 
feeling  of  the  weight  of  years,  or  the  fact  of  disease  enfeebling 
the  physical  powers  ;  and  at  last  there  is  the  coming  down  to 
the  point  where  the  spirit  leaves  the  body.  It  may  or  may 
not  be  a  moment  of  unconsciousness.  The  Swedenborgian 
Church  teaches  that  it  is  three  days  from  the  time  when 
death  comes  to  the  body  to  the  time  when  the  spirit-form 
is  fully  born  out  into  the  light  of  the  other  world.  It  is 
supposed  by  some  that  there  is  a  point  of  unconsciousness. 
By  others  it  is  thought  that  what  is  called  unconsciousness  is 
only  the  passing  from  one  life  to  the  other. 

The  mind  having  consciousness  of  itself,  of  the  world  it  is 
leaving  and  the  world  to  which  it  goes,  what  will  be  the  con¬ 
dition  of  the  spirit  just  as  it  emerges  from  the  body  ?  There 
is  a  beautiful  work  entitled  “Yesterday,  To-Day  and  For¬ 
ever,”  in  which  the  writer  represents  himself  at  the  dying 
moment,  in  the  sweet  consciousness  of  passing  out  of  his 


124 


The  Origin  and  Destiny  of  Man. 


body,  liis  friends  standing  around  his  bedside.  Then  he  pic¬ 
tures  himself  in  his  spirit-form,  lingering  about  his  body, 
witnessing  the  wife  and  children  gathered  about  the  lifeless 
form.  Then,  passing  out  into  the  streets  of  the  city,  he  sees 
the  great  world  and  the  mighty  spirit-struggle  that  is  not  vis¬ 
ible  to  mortal  eyes  —  the  good  spirits  surrounding  youth  and 
trying  to  lead  them  upward,  and  evil  spirits,  in  their  dark 
investiture,  seeking  to  lure  them  downward.  Then,  being 
borne  above,  he  is  received  by  bands  of  angel  friends  and  con¬ 
ducted  to  his  place  of  rest.  This,  of  course,  is  poetry,  but  it 
gives  what  the  author  conceives  will  be  the  experience  of  the 
spirit  in  its  transition  from  the  body. 

Personally,  I  think  that  one  coming  down  to  the  point  of 
dying  may  find  it  something  like  the  setting  of  the  sun.  Had 
we  never  seen  the  going  down  of  our  sun,  we  would  dread  the 
thought  of  darkness  coming  on.  Men  would  gather  in 
the  deepest  alarm  as  the  great  orb  began  to  descend  in  the 
west.  They  would  gaze  anxiously  at  the  last  lingering  rays 
on  the  tree-tops  and  liill-toiDs.  But  as  the  sun  gradually  dis¬ 
appeared,  and  darkness  began  to  settle  over  them,  they  would 
see  in  the  distance  a  twinkling  star ;  and  as  they  looked  at 
this,  another  would  ajDpear,  and  another,  and  another,  till,  as 
they  stood  gazing,  the  whole  starry  heavens  would  shine  out 
before  them.  Instead  of  the  going  down  of  the  sun  being  an 
eclipse,  it  only  makes  visible  the  splendor  of  the  heavens.  So 
we  should  go  down  to  dying,  thinking  of  the  change  as  only 
revealing  to  us  the  vaster  universe  beyond. 

Again,  I  think  that  death,  being  a  birth  out  of  the  body 
into  this  other  condition,  the  life  beyond  is  possibly  one  of 


The  Intermediate  State. 


125 


gradual  unfolding,  not  unlike  our  childhood  life  here.  I  can¬ 
not  think  that  a  man  is  one  thing  here,  and  the  next  moment 
something  very  different  in  the  other  world.  I  cannot  think 
that  a  man  passes  at  once  from  low  earthly  conditions  to  a 
life  far  away  among  the  angels.  It  seems  to  me  that  whatever 
change  the  spirit  undergoes  after  leaving  the  "body  will  be 
gentle  and  gradual.  The  tired  spirit  may  need  rest ;  the 
weak  spirit  may  need  strength.  In  the  land  where  all  is  new, 
there  will  be  a  gradual  learning,  a  tender  leading  out  into  the 
morning  of  that  glad  day.  In  my  own  feelings,  I  have  not  a 
doubt  that  not  only  will  life  continue,  but  that  it  will  experi¬ 
ence  a  gentle  disclosure  of  the  things  beyond.  I  have  not  a 
doubt  that  angelic  spirits  will  be  in  attendance  to  accompany 
us  to  our  final  home.  I  can  think  of  nothing  sweeter  than  a 
mother  coming  to  stand  by  the  death-bed  of  a  child ;  or  a 
child  coming  to  meet  its  mother  ;  or  friends  and  neighbors, 
with  whom  we  have  held  sweet  converse,  coming  to  greet  us 
at  the  last  hour  on  earth.  They  will  come  to  reassure  our 
dying  hopes ;  and,  passing  from  the  hands  that  soothe  our 
aching  brow  and  the  lips  that  whisper  in  our  heavy  and  un¬ 
hearing  ears,  we  shall  find  ourselves  by  the  side  of  friends  in 
the  other  life.  Socrates,  before  he  died,  said  he  expected 
soon  to  be  with  Homer,  and  Hesiod,  and  Orpheus,  and 
Musaius.  Cicero  apostrophized  his  departed  daughter,  and 
said  he  should  meet  her  in  the  realms  of  the  blest.  Dante 
thought  to  find  his  Beatrice  in  the  spirit-life.  It  is  the  hope 
that  you  and  I  carry  that  wre  shall  meet  our  children  in  the 
other  land ;  that  we  shall  there  meet  our  friends  who  have 
died  here,  and  that  they  will  be  our  guides,  guardians  and 


126 


The  Origin  and  Destiny  of  Man. 


counsellors ;  that  they  will  lead  us  forth  into  that  fair  land, 
and  will  continue  to  minister  unto  us. 

As  I  stand  here,  it  seems  like  a  dream  that  I  am  talking  to 
you  in  the  light  of  this  beautiful  room ;  that  the  time  will 
soon  come  when  others  shall  be  here  and  we  shall  be  gone. 
Yes,  my  friends,  the  strange  mystery  lies  before  us.  “Man 
dieth  and  wasteth  away,”  but  the  spirit  goeth  up  from  the 
body.  While  I  feel,  as  I  said  before,  that  I  talk  without  that 
firm  foundation  under  me  that  I  could  wish  as  to  exact  facts, 
yet  I  have  a  conviction  that  is  present  and  immovable  that  the 
spirit-life  of  those  who  trust  in  God  will  be  as  it  should  be  ; 
that  the  life  of  the  spirit  will  be  suited  to  the  spirit.  Journey 
on  in  life,  then.  Do  what  is  right.  Trust  in  God.  When 
the  time  comes  to  give  up  your  friends,  give  them  up  not  as 
one  without  hope,  but  trustfully,  aye,  cheerfully.  And  when 
our  own  time  comes  to  go  from  this  world,  let  us  joyfully 
bid  good-bye  to  the  songs  of  friends,  and  go  in  the  hope  of  a 
reunion  and  happiness  in  the  land  beyond. 


X. 


THE  RESURRECTION. 


Who  shall  roll  us  away  the  stone  from  the  door  of  the  sepulchr®? — 
Mark,  xvi,  3. 

Why  should  it  be  thought  a  thing  incredible  with  you,  that  God 
should  raise  the  dead?— Acts,  xxvi,  8. 

MAN  has  appeared  everywhere  on  the  earth  as  a  con¬ 
queror.  He  subdues  the  forests,  reclaims  the  waste 
places,  and  drives  out  the  wild  beasts.  He  makes 
use  of  the  power  of  the  -wind  and  water  and  electricity.  In 
everything  he  seems  to  be  the  master  —  as  he  is.  But  he  has 
never  been  able  to  fully  resist  disease,  nor  to  overcome  the 
tendency  to  decay  and  death  which  is  found  in  his  own  body. 
And,  one  age  following  after  another,  he  may  be  represented 
as  coming  with  the  mourners  who  came  to  the  grave  of  Jesus, 
and  standing  tearfully,  questioningly  in  the  presence  of  the 
great  mystery  of  death,  asking  this  question,  “Who  shall  roll 
us  away  the  stone  from  the  door  of  the  sepulchre  ?”  Who 
shall  hang  a  light  in  this  dark  way  ?  Who  shall  help  us  to 
see  clearly  into  that  which  is  beyond  ?  As  a  rule,  truth  does 
not  come  at  once  in  its  fullness  to  the  mind.  It  is  more  like 
the  breaking  of  a  new  day.  First  we  have  the  gray  twilight 
of  the  morning,  then  the  rising  of  the  sun,  and  then  the  full- 


128 


The  Origin  and  Destiny  of  Man. 


ness  of  the  clay.  Especially  when  we  come  to  look  at  matters 
in  reference  to  the  spirit,  at  questions  in  reference  to  the 
future,  we  cannot  at  once  get  the  impressions  of  great  truths 
upon  the  mind.  It  is  only  by  much  looking,  by  steady  look¬ 
ing,  and  long  looking,  that  the  picture  seems  to  take  on  its 
fullness,  that  a  life  beyond  the  grave  seems  to  become  a  fact 
to  us.  And  this  is  one  of  the  benefits  that  I  have  hoped 
might  arise  from  this  series  of  discourses — that  you  will  be 
benefited  far  beyond  what  I  may  say ;  that  the  light  shall 
come  to  you  that  comes  from  looking  into  the  future  and 
keeping  the  subject  before  the  mind. 

So,  after  having  looked  at  the  question  of  death,  and  in  the 
next  discourse  trod  with  what  seemed  a  firm  and  sure  footing 
on  the  shores  of  the  beyond,  we  last  Sunday  evening  took  up 
the  question  of  the  Intermediate  State.  I  said  to  you  then 
that  while  my  mind  was  not  very  clear  on  the  subject,  I 
thought  it  was  one  that  should  not  be  passed  over.  My  con¬ 
clusions  were  that  the  soul  of  man,  on  leaving  the  body,  does 
not  at  once  enter  upon  the  fullness  of  bliss  or  of  sorrow  ;  that 
it  does  not  go  at  once  to  what  we  call  heaven  or  to  what  we 
call  hell ;  but  that  there  is  a  time  of  longer  or  shorter  dura¬ 
tion  in  which  it  gathers  strength  and  preparation  for  the 
spirit-life.  Then  it  is  the  faith  of  the  church,  both  Protestant 
and  Roman  Catholic,  that  in  some  form  there  is  to  be  a  resur¬ 
rection  or  re-living  of  the  body,  and  this  intermediate  state 
lies  between  death  and  that  event.  The  exact  question  we 
now  come  to,  seems  to  be  this  :  Death  takes  away  our  body, 
deprives  us  of  the  senses  through  which  we  have  held 
communion  with  material  things  ;  now  is  man  to  live  on  for- 


The  Resurrection. 


129 


ever  in  the  absence  of  this  body  ?  Or  is  he  to  be  re-invested 
with  a  material  organization  ? 

I  will  first  ask  youi  attention  while  I  read  ?  few  selections 
from  the  Scriptures,  which  seem  to  be  the  basis  on  w  hich  the 
church  has  founded  its  belief  that  there  would  be  a  resurrec¬ 
tion  of  the  body.  I  will  read  first  from  the  19th  chapter  of 
Job,  beginning  at  the  25th  verse  with  the  well-known  text, 
“For  I  know  that  my  redeemer  liveth 

For  I  know  that  my  Eedeemer  liveth,  and  that  he  shall  stand  at  the 
latter  day  upon  the  earth  : 

And  though  after  my  skin  worms  destroy  this  body,  yet  in  my  flesh 
shall  I  see  God  : 

Whom  I  shall  see  for  myself,  and  mine  eyes  shall  behold,  and  not 
another ;  though  my  reins  be  consumed  within  me. 

But  ye  should  say,  Why  persecute  we  him,  seeing  the  root  of  the 
matter  is  found  in  me  ? 

Be  ye  afraid  of  the  sword  ;  for  wrath  bringeth  the  punishments  of  the 
sword,  that  ye  may  know  there  is  a  judgment. 

There  must  be  a  special  interest  about  this  text  from  the 
fact  that  it  reflects  the  old  patriarchal  conception  of  the  sub¬ 
ject.  According  to  our  Bible  chronology,  Methuselah  lived 
in  the  time  of  both  Adam  and  Noah  ;  and  then,  possibly 
about  three  generations  from  the  time  of  the  flood,  the  human 
family  journeyed  to  the  plains  of  Shinar  and  built  the  tower 
of  Babel.  Soon  after  this  the  book  of  Job  was  written.  It 
thus  comes  in  back  of  the  time  of  Abraham  ;  and  whether  we 
look  at  it  as  literal  history  or  as  one  of  those  poems  written  to 
illustrate  truth,  it  is  valuable  as  giving  us  that  conception  of 
truth  which  was  back  in  the  ancient  mind.  Here  was  this 
man,  sick  in  mi -id  and  in  body,  smitten  in  property,  and 

wasting  away  under  the  touch  of  disease,  yet  he  exclaims  : 

9 


130 


The  Origin  and  Destiny  of  Man. 


“I  know  that  my  Redeemer  livetli.”  So  great  is  liis  faith 
under  every  form  of  affliction  that  he  says:  “Though  after 
my  skin  worms  destroy  my  body,  yet  in  my  flesh  shall  I  see 
God.”  There  is  in  the  13th  chapter  of  Hosea,  in  the  14th 
verse,  this  remarkable  scripture  : 

I  will  ransom  them  from  the  power  of  the  grave  :  I  will  redeem  them 
from  death.  O  death,  I  will  be  thy  plagues  :  O  grave,  I  will  be  thy  de¬ 
struction. 

And  this  from  Daniel,  12th  chapter,  2d  verse : 

And  many  of  them  that  sleep  in  the  dust  of  the  earth  shall  awake, 
some  to  everlasting  hie,  and  some  to  shame  and  everlasting  contempt. 

This  subject,  of  course,  like  the  question  of  immortality, 
was  but  dimly  seen  in  the  old  Scriptures,  and  it  is  not  till  we 
reach  the  New  Testament  that  we  get  full  light.  I  will  now 
read  from  the  22d  chapter  of  St.  Matthew,  beginning  at  the 
23d  and  ending  at  the  32d  verse  : 

The  same  day  came  to  him  the  Sadducees,  which  say  that  there  is  no 

resurrection,  and  adied  lnm, 

Saying,  Master,  Moses  said,  If  a  man  die,  having  no  children,  his 
brother  shall  marry  his  wife,  and  raise  up  seed  unto  his  brother. 

Now  there  were  with  us  seven  brethren  :  and  the  first,  when  he  had 
married  a  wife,  deceased,  and,  having  no  issue,  left  his  wife  unto  his 
brother : 

Likewise  the  second,  also,  and  the  third,  unto  the  seventh. 

And  last  of  ail  the  woman  died  also. 

Therefore,  in  the  resurrection,  whose  wife  shall  she  be  of  the  seven  ? 
for  they  ail  had  her. 

Jesus  answered  and  said  unto  them,  Ye  do  err,  not  knowing  the 

Scriptures  nor  the  power  of  God. 

For  in  the  resurrection  they  neither  many  nor  are  given  in  marriage, 
but  are  as  the  angels  of  God  in  heaven. 

But  as  touching  the  resurrection  of  the  dead,  have  ye  not  read  that 
which  was  spoken  unto  you  by  God,  saying, 

I  am  the  God  of  Abraham,  and  the  God  of  Isaac,  and  the  God  of  Ja¬ 
cob?  God  is  not  the  God  of  the  dead,  but  of  the  living. 


The  Resurrection. 


131 


Of  course,  this  is  a  hypothetical  case,  but  it  is  a  very  clear 
illustration  of  the  Saviour’s  argument  and  cf  His  answer  to 
what  was  supposed  to  be  the  greatest  difficulty  in  the  way  of 
the  doctrine.  So,  also,  is  the  text:  “God  is  not  the  God 
of  the  dead,  but  of  the  living.”  If  he  were  the  God  of 
the  dead,  He  would  be  a  dead  God,  gathering  death  unto 
Him  ;  but  being  the  God  of  the  living,  He  is  a  living  God, 
and  gathers  life  unto  Himself.  Our  Saviour  here  sides  with 
the  thought  that  there  is  a  resurrrection,  and  bases  it  on  the 
fact  that  the  spirits  of  Abraham  and  Isaac  and  Jacob  are  still 
living,  and  that  the  living  spirit  will  some  how  call  out  for  a 
living  body. 

Now  let  me  read  from  the  15th  chapter  of  First  Corinthians. 
You  will  remember  the  whole  chapter  is  devoted  largely  to 
the  discussion  of  this  subject  : 

Now  if  Christ  be  preached  that  he  rose  from  the  dead,  how  say  some 
among  you  that  there  is  no  resurrection  of  the  dead  ? 

But  if  there  be  no  resurrection  of  the  dead,  then  is  Christ  not  risen  : 

And  if  Christ  be  not  risen,  then  is  our  preaching  vain,  and  your  faith 
is  also  vain. 

Yea,  and  we  are  found  false  witnesses  of  God ;  because  we  have  testi¬ 
fied  of  God  that  he  raised  up  Christ ;  whom  he  raised  not  up,  if  so  be 
that  the  dead  rise  not. 

For  if  the  dead  rise  not,  then  is  not  Christ  raised  : 

And  if  Christ  be  not  raised,  your  faith  is  vain  ;  ye  are  yet  in  your  sins. 

Then  they,  also,  which  are  fallen  asleep  in  Christ  are  perished. 

If  in  this  life  only  we  have  hope  in  Christ,  we  are  of  all  men  most 
miserable. 

But  now  is  Christ  risen  from  tho  dead,  and  become  the  first-fruits  of 
them  that  slept. 

For  since  by  man  came  death,  by  man  came  also  the  resurrection 
of  the  dead. 

For  as  in  Adam  all  die,  even  so  in  Christ  shall  all  bo  made  alive. 

The  strength  of  the  apostle’s  argument  lies  in  this  :  He 


132 


The  Origin  and  Desting  of  Man. 


makes  the  resurrection  of  Christ  the  proof  of  the  fact  of  the 
resurrection  of  man,  and  then  goes  on  to  show  that,  if  Christ 
be  not  risen,  certain  consequences  follow.  He  wants  to  make 
sure  of  the  fact  of  Christ’s  resurrection,  for  he  joins  the 
resurrection  of  man  with  it.  He  says,  in  the  first  place,  “  If 
Christ  be  not  risen,  then  is  our  preaching  vain.”  Paul  could 
well  make  such  a  challenge  as  this,  for  his  preaching  had 
caused  governors  and  kings  to  tremble,  and  had  shaken  the 
foundations  of  society  to  their  very  base.  Christ’s  apostles 
had  filled  the  world  with  new  ideas.  Their  preaching  was 
actually  transforming  character,  and  was  becoming  a  power 
before  which  the  pagan  leaders  felt  it  became  them  to  stand 
up  and  defend  their  own  gods  and  their  temples.  Paul  based 
the  power  of  his  preaching  on  the  resurrection  of  Chist. 
Another  result  would  be,  that,  if  Christ  be  not  risen,  “your 
faith  is  also  vain.”  I  may  not  be  able,  in  reference  to  some 
proposition,  to  prove  to  you  that  it  is  certainly  true  ;  but  if  it 
be  a  question  whether  my  faith  in  Christ  is  vain,  then  I  may 
say,  even  as  the  blind  man  said  :  “Whether  He  be  a  sinner 
or  no,  I  know  not ;  one  thing  I  know,  that  whereas  I  was 
blind,  now  I  see.”  And  Paul  could  well  base  his  arguments 
on  this  appeal  to  consciousness.  He  felt  that  here  was  a  faith 
which  could  not  be  vain,  for  it  had  accomplished  great  things; 
it  had  worked  a  clear  reformation  of  character,  and  made  new 
creatures  of  those  who  believed.  Then  the  apostle  says,  if 
Christ  be  notrisen,  “we  are  found  false  witnesses  of  God, 
because  we  have  testified  of  God  that  he  raised  up  Christ.” 
If  Christ  be  not  raised,  their  preaching  was  vain  ;  second,  the 
faith  of  the  people  was  vain  ;  third,  the  apostles  must  be  set 


The  Resurrection. 


133 


down  as  self-convicted  falsifiers  before  the  world ;  and  he 
finally  draws  one  other  consequence  —  “Then  they,  also, 
which  are  fallen  asleep  in  him  are  perished.” 

Let  me  read,  now,  from  First  Thessalonians,  4th  chapter, 
beginning  at  the  13th  verse  : 

But  I  would  not  have  you  to  be  ignorant,  brethren,  concerning  them 
which  are  asleep,  that  ye  sorrow  not,  even  as  others  which  have  no 
hope. 

For  if  we  believe  that  Jesus  died  and  rose  again,  even  so  them,  also, 
which  sleep  in  Jesus  will  God  bring  with  him. 

For  this  we  say  unto  you  by  the  word  of  the  Lord,  that  we  which  are 
alive  and  remain  unto  the  coming  of  the  Lord  shall  not  prevent  them 
which  are  asleep. 

For  the  Lord  himself  shall  descend  from  heaven  with  a  shout,  with 
the  voice  of  the  archangel,  and  with  the  trump  of  God  ;  and  the  dead  in 
Christ  shall  rise  first. 

Then  we  which  are  alive  and  remain  shall  be  caught  up  together  with 
them  in  the  clouds,  to  meet  the  Lord  in  the  air ;  and  so  shall  we  ever 
be  with  the  Lord. 

Wherefore  comfort  one  another  with  these  words. 

In  this  scripture  there  seems  to  be  a  special  care  that  we  be 
instructed  on  this  subject,  that  those  who  know  sorrow  shall 
not  be  “as  others  who  have  no  hope.”  God  knows  it  is  hard 
enough  for  us  to  see  our  loved  ones  torn  from  our  embrace, 
even  when  we  are  possessed  with  the  assurance  that  they  live 
hereafter.  But  what  would  be  the  gloom  of  that  night,  the 
fathomless  depth  of  that  shoreless  ocean  of  sorrow,  if  we  had 
not  some  such  hope  as  this  !  And  he  says,  “Comfort  one 
another  with  these  words.”  Pass  them  around  from  home  to 
home,  from  house  to  house,  from  heart  to  heart ;  take  cour¬ 
age  and  comfort  from  this  assurance  that,  as  “Jesus  died  and 
rose  again,  even  so  them  also  which  sleep  in  Jesus  will  God 
bring  with  Him.” 


134  The  Origin  and  Destiny  of  Man. 

I  will  only  ask  your  attention  to  one  more  selection,  which 
is  from  the  20th  chapter  of  Revelation,  beginning  at  the  11th 
verse  : 

And  I  saw  a  great  white  throne,  and  him  that  sat  on  it,  from  whose 
face  the  earth  and  the  heaven  fled  away ;  and  there  was  found  no  place 
for  them. 

And  I  saw  the  dead,  small  and  great,  stand  before  God  :  and  the  books 
were  opened  ;  and  another  book  was  opened,  which  is  the  book  of  life  : 
and  the  dead  were  judged  out  of  those  things  which  were  written  in  the 
books,  according  to  their  works. 

And  the  sea  gave  up  the  dead  which  were  in  it ;  and  death  and  hell 
delivered  up  the  dead  which  were  in  them  ;  and  they  were  judged  every 
man  according  to  their  works. 

And  death  and  hell  were  cast  into  the  lake  of  fire.  This  is  the  second 
death. 

And  whosoever  was  not  found  written  in  the  book  of  life  was  cast  into 
the  lake  of  fire. 

It  seems  evident  from  these  scriptures,  and  there  are  many 
more  I  might  read,  that  the  Bible  certainly  teaches  the  doc¬ 
trine  of  the  resurrection.  If  we  could  be  certain  what  is 
meant  by  this  resurrection,  we  could  feel  that  we  had  gained 
a  great  point.  But  here  we  are  in  the  conflict  of  opinions, 
not  as  to  the  fact  of  the  rising,  but  as  to  the  manner.  There 
is  a  large  class  of  thinkers  who  claim  that  by  the  scriptural 
idea  of  resurrection  there  is  meant  simply  the  rising  up  of  the 
soul  from  the  body,  its  going  up  into  a  higher  life  after  death. 
They  claim,  and  justly  enough,  that  the  word  we  translate  res¬ 
urrection  may  mean  rising  up,  as  well  as  rising  again.  Another 
view,  maintained  by  a  minister  of  our  own  church,  of  the 
California  conference — Rev.  Mr.  Dryden — in  a  work  published 
by  our  church,  takes  the  ground  that  by  the  resurrection  is 
meant  not  in  any  sense  the  rising  of  the  body  that  dies,  or 
that  has  lain  in  the  grave,  but  the  rising  up  of  souls  out  of 


The  Resurrection. 


135 


what  is  called  the  intermediate  or  unseen  state.  He  takes  the 
general  ground  that  souls,  at  death,  go  into  this  hades ;  that 
they  linger  in  this  for  a  longer  or  shorter  time ;  that  the 
resurrection  is  a  rising  out  of  this  state,  and  it  may  be  going 
on  constantly  ;  and  that  it  is  not  a  rising  of  the  material 
body.  Then  there  is  the  doctrine  of  the  church  accounted 
orthodox,  which  holds,  though  not  in  the  most  definite 
form,  to  the  rising  of  the  body.  In  some  sense,  the  general 
thought  of  the  church  is  the  resurrection  of  the  body  that 
dies. 

Now,  I  have  stated  these  various  theories  to  you,  and  I 
would  be  glad  if  I  could  state  with  certainty  just  where  the 
exact  truth  lies.  You  can  find  plenty  of  younger  men  than 
myself  who  can  tell  you  just  where  it  is,  but  to  one  who  has 
read  and  thought  long  and  deeply  on  the  subject,  it  is  hard  to 
speak  definitely.  Yet,  out  of  all  the  different  opinions  that 
are  held,  this  one  truth  seems  beyond  question  :  that  the  faith 
of  the  church  and  the  teaching  of  the  Bible  assure  us  of  a  life 
beyond,  a  life  that  some  how  or  in  some  way  will  have  a 
bodily  form,  will  answer  to  the  thought  of  the  re-living  of  the 
bodies  that  die ;  for  that  seems  to  be  the  idea  of  a  resurrec¬ 
tion.  This  man  who  holds  that  the  resurrection  is  a  rising  out 
of  the  intermediate  state  makes  a  strong  point  on  this,  that 
it  is  the  rising  of  the  dead — not  what  we  call  dead  in  the 
sense  of  the  body  being  dead — but  of  the  living  souls  of 
those  who  have  departed,  applying  the  term  “dead”  to  those 
who  have  died  in  the  sense  of  bodily  death,  but  who  are 
living  in  the  unseen  state,  out  of  which  they  arise. 

Passing  now  from  these  views,  I  want  to  look  at  the  subject 


136 


The  Origin  and  Destiny  of  Man , 


from  a  different  standpoint.  Most  writers  have  thought  that 
the  analogies  of  nature  seem  to  illustrate  the  doctrine  of  the 
resurrection,  and  there  are  many  beautiful  thoughts  connected 
with  this  view,  but  to  my  mind  they  do  not  have  very  much 
weight.  There  is  the  thought  of  day  rising  out  of  night ;  the 
thought  of  spring  rising  out  of  the  cold  grave  of  winter. 
Possibly  a  better  analogy  might  be  found  in  the  rising  of  the 
seed  to  the  stalk,  blossoming  in  the  flower,  and  ripening  in  the 
fruit.  Perhaps  a  still  better  one  is  that  found  in  the  change 
which  the  caterpillar  undergoes,  passing  from  its  unseemly 
form  to  its  chrysalis  state,  and  emerging  the  bright-winged 
butterfly,  resting  in  the  air,  and  going  from  flower  to  flower. 

Passing  from  these  analogies,  I  want  to  look  back  at  some 
of  the  difficulties  that  hang  about  the  question  of  the  resur¬ 
rection.  It  may  be  a  help  to  some  minds  to  state  them  and 
answer  them.  In  the  first  place,  it  is  objected  that  there  can¬ 
not  be  a  resurrection  of  the  body  from  the  fact  that  the  human 
body  during  life  is  frequently  changed  in  its  entire  composi¬ 
tion.  Formerly  high  authority  used  to  controvert  this  fact, 
but  it  is  better  not  to  attempt  that  now.  It  is  a  pretty  well 
established  fact  that  a  man  living  to  the  age  of  sixty  will  have 
at  least  six  or  seven  bodies  in  that  time.  Now,  the  objectors 
say,  a  man  having  all  these  bodies,  which  one  is  it  that  will 
live  hereafter  ?  At  first  view  there  seems  to  be  something  in 
this  objection,  but  it  really  has  very  little  strength,  for  that 
which  we  call  identity,  that  which  is  our  identity,  does  not 
desert  us  in  these  changes  of  the  bodv.  A  man  convicted  of 
crime  and  sentenced  to  the  penitentiary  when  a  youth  cannot 
say  at  the  age  of  thirty  :  “I  am  not  the  man  that  was  sen- 


The  Resurrection. 


137 


tenced  here  ;  the  body  that  was  first  put  in  prison  is  not  the 
body  I  now  wear.”  It  might  be  true  that  he  would  not  have 
one  particle  of  the  body  with  which  he  entered  the  cell,  yet 
he  would  have  that  which  satisfies  the  idea  of  selfhood,  of  per¬ 
sonal  identity. 

It  has  been  objected  to  the  thought  of  the  possibility  of  a 
resurrection,  again,  that  the  particles  of  the  human  body, 
when  it  dies  and  is  placed  away  in  the  grave,  not  only  return 
to  dust,  but  that  this  dust  may  be  again  vitalized  in  other 
forms  ;  that  it  may  grow  in  the  tree  and  ripen  in  the  fruit ; 
that  it  may  go  to  nourish  that  which  is  eaten  by  other 
bodies,  and  may  be  assimilated  with  and  become  part  of  these 
bodies,  and  that  in  this  way  the  fact  of  resurrection  is  made 
impossible.  Now  I  do  not  see  that  there  is  much  weight  in 
this  argument,  for  in  the  first  place  what  we  mean  when  we 
speak  of  the  particles  of  the  human  body  is  the  substances 
which  compose  it.  Take  an  example  :  a  human  body  contains 
so  much  iron,  so  much  oxygen,  so  much  hydrogen,  so  much 
lime — in  a  word,  so  many  of  the  elementary  principles  of 
nature.  Now  suppose  that  this  body  be  dissolved,  what 
becomes  of  these  elements  ?  The  iron  is  iron  still ;  the  oxy¬ 
gen  is  oxygen  still ;  the  hydrogen  is  hydrogen  still  ;  the  lime 
is  lime  still.  And  it  does  not  matter  whether,  in  the  human 
body,  you  get  back  just  the  same  hydrogen  ;  it  does  not  mat¬ 
ter  whether  you  get  back  just  the  same  carbon,  the  same  lime 
and  the  same  iron.  I  breathe  at  this  moment  so  much  ogy- 
gen,  and  exhale  so  much  carbon.  The  oxygen  may  have 
passed  through  other  lungs,  and  thus  have  been  a  part  of 
other  bodies,  but  it  is  still  oxygen.  It  remains  itself  ;  and  all 


138 


The  Origin  and  Destiny  of  Man. 


that  is  required  to  fulfill  the  idea  of  even  a  literal  resurrection 
is  that  we  have  bodies  composed  of  the  same  elements  that 
went  to  make  up  our  bodies  here — tha.  is,  of  oxygen,  carbon, 
&c.  Whether  it  be  the  same  oxygen  and  carbon  that  once 
were  a  part  of  ourselves  matters  not  ;  for  those  elements  are 
always  and  everywhere  the  same. 

So  it  is  that  out  of  these  elementary  particles  human  bodies 
are  builded,  and  out  of  nature’s  storehouse  God  will  in  some 
way  re-invest  the  spirit  with  a  material  organism.  We  can 
well  believe  that  this  is  possible  in  the  light  of  what  chemistry 
can  do.  There  are  many  things  which  the  chemist  can  do 
which  we  would  not  believe  to  be  possible  did  we  not  know 
them  to  be  facts.  I  think  it  is  Dr.  Brown,  who  quotes  from 
Mr.  Hallett  the  story  of  a  gentleman  who  was  something  of  a 
chemist,  and  who  had  a  number  of  servants.  One  of  these 
had  been  particularly  faithful,  and  he  had  given  him  a  silver 
cup  as  a  reward.  The  servant  dropped  the  cup  in  a  vessel  of 
what  he  supposed  to  be  pure  water,  but  which  in  reality  was 
aqua  fortis.  He  let  it  lie  there,  not  thinking  it  could  receive 
any  harm,  but  returning  some  time  after  saw  the  cup  gradu¬ 
ally  dissolving.  He  was  loudly  bewailing  his  loss,  when  the 
other  servants  told  him  that  his  master  could  restore  the  cup 
for  him.  He  could  not  believe  them.  “  Do  you  not  see,”  he 
said,  “that  it  is  dissolving  before  our  sight?”  But  they 
insisted,  and  at  last  the  master  was  brought  to  the  spot.  He 
called  for  some  salt  water  which  he  poured  into  the  vessel, 
and  told  the  servant  to  watch.  By-aud-by  the  particles  of 
the  silver  cup  began  to  gather  as  a  white  powder  at  the  bot¬ 
tom.  When  the  deposit  was  complete,  the  master  said  to  the 


The  Resurrection. 


139 


servant :  “Pour  off  the  liquid,  gather  up  this  dust,  have  it 
melted  and  run  together,  then  take  it  to  the  workman  and  let 
him  hammer  the  cup  out  again.”  You  may  take  gold.  You 
may  file  it  down  to  a  powder,  mix  it  with  other  metals,  throw 
it  into  the  fire,  do  what  you  will  with  it,  and  the  chemist  will 
bring  back  with  certainty  the  exact  gold.  Thus  our  bodies 
are  built  up  by  fruits  from  the  tropics,  by  grain  from  the 
prairies.  The  flesh  that  roamed  the  plains  as  cattle  has 
become  part  of  us.  If  God  can  build  up  human  bodies  here, 
can  he  not  find  an  d  convert  the  dust  that  we  put  away  in  the 
grave,  and  bring  it  back  to  forms  of  life  ?  In  my  judgment, 
God  is  able  to  preserve  even  the  particles  of  the  human  body 
and  restore  them.  So  far  as  the  power  is  concerned,  it  can 
be  done,  and  will  be  done,  as  God  may  think  best. 

It  seems  to  me  there  will  be  a  resurrection  in  the  sense  of 
the  soul  being  clothed  with  a  material  organism — something 
that  will  put  it  in  relation  to  material  things.  I  cannot  think 
that  this  being  of  mine  and  yours,  with  all  its  experience  of 
work  and  rest,  of  joy  and  sorrow,  of  struggle  and  victory, 
may  have  to  go  on  without  an  outward  bodily  organism.  I 
cannot  believe  that  the  spirit  is  to  go  on  forever,  leaving  its 
companion  behind — this  body,  which  is  the  highest  ideal  of 
physical  beauty.  I  need  not  now  retrace  the  lines  of  thought 
given  in  the  third  of  these  discourses  as  to  the  processes 
which  have  led  up  to  the  perfect  human  form  ;  how  they  be¬ 
gan  away  down  in  the  simplest  forms  of  life,  passing  on 
through  fish  and  serpent  and  quadruped,  till  we  reach  man, 
the  being  with  the  erect  form  and  heavenward  glance— man, 
with  the  hand  that  works,  with  the  eye  that  weeps,  with  the 


140 


The  Origin  and  Destiny  of  Man. 


face  that  laughs,  with  the  reason  that  thinks,  with  the  heart 
that  feels.  This  human  form  is  the  highest  ideal  of  physical 
organism.  Well  may  we  fondly  linger  about  the  ideals  of 
Greek  art.  The  perfect  human  form  stands  without  a  rival 
in  the  whole  world  of  beauty.  God  having  given  us  this 
body  to  illustrate  the  highest  expression  of  beauty,  and  per¬ 
mitted  us  to  rejoice  in  living  in  this  form,  and  given  it  for  a 
high  purpose,  then  is  it  simply  to  be  worn  as  a  garment  here  ? 
This  body  seems  to  be  the  medium  of  sense  communication. 
Now  the  material  world  is  a  fact,  and  it  is  one  of  the  greatest 
facts  which  the  mind  can  conceive.  Here  is  the  great  earth 
on  which  we  live  ;  there  are  the  worlds  of  our  solar  system, 
and  the  worlds,  infinite  in  number,  that  make  the  vast  uni¬ 
verse.  These  are  stupendous  facts  that  endure.  Then  we 
have  another  variety  of  facts  that  live  on.  Water  will  run, 
trees  will  grow,  flowers  will  bloom,  fruits  will  ripen,  the 
autumn  breeze  will  rustle  in  the  leaves,  and  sunshine  will 
linger  forever  in  beauty  on  the  mountain  tops.  The  question, 
as  it  looks  to  me,  is  this  :  Is  man  to  be  forever  isolated  from 
these  things  of  beauty,  and  live  in  a  sort  of  sublimated  state, 
accessible  only  to  the  cold  conceptions  of  thought ;  or  is  he 
to  have  such  a  body  about  him  as  will  be  capable  of  touch 
and  taste,  of  sight  and  hearing — such  a  body  as  may  stand  by 
the  running  brook,  sit  beneath  the  shadows  of  the  groves, 
and  listen  to  the  sweetness  of  song  ?  And  reason  seems  to 
say  to  me  that  the  spirit  of  man  is  to  have  such  a  body  in  the 
great  future. 

I  know  not,  and  I  care  not,  myself,  whether  in  some  way 
we  take  the  germ  of  that  body  with  us  when  we  pass  to  the 


The  Resurrection, 


141 


other  side  and  our  new  body  come  as  a  growth,  or  whether 
by  some  divine  agency  the  particles  of  the  old  body  are  gath¬ 
ered  together.  The  great  fact  that  I  stand  for  is  that  the  spirit 
lives,  and  that  it  is  to  have  some  such  organism  as  will  make  it 
the  connecting  link  between  matter  and  spirit ;  that  man  is 
forever  to  fill  that  place  where  he  takes  hold  of  God  and  of 
the  material  universe.  I  have  a  beautiful  dream — the  thought 
that  not  only  does  the  soul  live,  not  only  will  there  be  some 
bodily  organism  for  you  and  me,  one  in  which  material  and 
mental  and  spiritual  things  will  unite,  but  that  some  how  the 
resurrection  body  will  be  infinitely  glorious.  The  Scriptures 
say  that  the  body  is  sown  in  corruption  and  that  it  shall  be 
raised  in  incorruption  ;  sown  in  weakness  —  and  oh,  how 
weak  !  sinking  down  to  the  last  gasping  breath — it  is  raised  in 
power  ;  sown  in  dishonor,  it  is  raised  in  glory.  You  take 
these  elements  and  put  them  together.  Take  incorruption — 
the  thought  of  a  body  that  shall  never  feel  the  touch  of  dis¬ 
ease  or  decay.  Take  the  thought  of  strength  ;  we  sometimes 
feel  the  thrill  and  trill  of  life  all  through  us ;  one  moment  of 
such  feeling  is  worth  half-a-dozen  ordinary  days  when  we 
are  oppressed  with  the  sense  of  weakness.  Take  the  thought 
that  we  shall  at  last  put  on  incorruptibility,  put  on  an  organ¬ 
ism  that  disease  cannot  touch,  an  organism  that  shall  never 
know  the  weakness  and  weariness  that  come  from  work  and 
thought — that  we  shall  have  strength  equal  to  any  undertak¬ 
ing.  How  often  in  this  life  do  we  turn  away  from  some  book 
and  say,  “My  head  aches;  I  will  have  to  quit  reading”? 
How  often  do  we  hear  persons  say,  “I  shall  not  be  able  to 
build  that  house,  or  plant  that  orchard  ”  ?  The  body  that  so 


142  The  Origin  and  Destiny  of  Man. 

fails  us  is  to  be  placed  beyond  tlie  contact  of  disease,  beyond 
the  touch  of  -weariness  ;  it  is  to  be  endowed  with  the  endur¬ 
ing  strength  of  God  Himself. 

I  have  a  thought  that  the  longing  for  the  beautiful  will  find 
a  realization  in  the  perfect  forms  of  our  being  hereafter.  One 
of  the  most  striking  things  in  life,  and  perhaps  one  of  the 
saddest,  is  to  see  the  endless  chase  after  beauty — the  endless 
changes  in  the  fashions  of  this  world,  the  constant  seeking 
for  new  types  and  higher  realizations  of  the  beautiful.  The 
painter  has  put  his  ideal  on  the  canvas  and  the  sculptor  in 
the  marble,  but  our  world  goes  on,  seeking  and  finding  not 
the  perfect  rest  that  is  in  the  beautiful.  The  flowers  whose 
fragrance  we  inhale  are  perfect  as  flowers  ;  the  birds  ard  the 
trees  are  each  perfect  in  their  way.  But  man  journeys  on, 
never  feeling  that  he  has  reached  the  exact  idea  of  beauty  in 
which  he  can  rest.  This  idea  is  some  how  to  be  realized. 
What  shape  the  spirit-form  may  take  we  know  not,  but  we 
feel  sure  that  in  it  man  will  find  his  yearnings  for  the  beauti¬ 
ful  satisfied.  Carrying  our  mental  consciousness,  with  its 
power  of  reason  ;  our  spiritual  consciousness,  with  its  power 
of  love  and  devotion  and  sympathy ;  and  the  thought  of  being 
re-invested  with  bodies  beautiful  beyond  our  present  dreams, 
forever  strong,  forever  young;  and  the  vast  universe  being 
our  home — the  question  comes,  can  all  this  be  ?  Yes  ;  it  is 
no  greater  marvel  than  the  present  world  that  is  about  us. 
And  He  who  has  carried  forward  this  vast  work  of  creation  is 
able  to  conserve  the  powers  of  mind  and  spirit,  re-investing 
them  with  bodies,  and  giving  them  the  vaster  eternity  in 
which  to  live,  and  labor,  and  love. 


XI. 


THE  JUDGMENT  DAT. 


And  as  it  is  appointed  unto  men  once  to  die,  butafter  this  the  judg¬ 
ment. — Hebbews,  ix,  27. 

OF  death,  the  first  step  in  the  problem  of  human  des¬ 
tiny,  there  can  be  no  possible  doubt.  Of  immortality, 
or  the  fact  that  our  real  being  survives  death,  I  think 
we  may  be  well  assured.  That  the  spirit  does  not  at  once 
enter  upon  the  fullness  of  its  after-life  or  condition,  but 
exists  for  a  time  in  what  the  church  has  called  the  interme¬ 
diate  state,  has  been  in  the  main  the  faith  of  the  church,  and 
is  possibly  the  actual  truth.  That  there  will  in  some  sense 
be  a  resurrection  of  the  dead,  we  sought  to  prove  from  the 
Scriptures  and  from  reason,  on  last  Sabbatli  evening.  The 
point  we  sought  to  make  was  that  man,  who  in  the  present 
life  is  the  one  being  endowed  with  both  a  material  and  spirit¬ 
ual  nature,  who  seems  to  be  the  connecting  link  between 
matter  and  divinity,  will  in  the  future  continue  to  hold  the 
same  place.  I  now  come  to  talk  to  you  of  the  Judgment 
Day.  In  our  text,  the  first  part  speaks  of  the  dying  of  man 
as  an  event  occurring  under  the  operation  of  law  or  by  ap¬ 
pointment.  “It  is  appointed  unto  man  once  to  die.”  And 


144 


The  Origin  and  Destiny  of  Man. 


in  the  same  appointment,  after  death  he  is  to  be  judged. 
When  we  have  once  taken  the  problem  of  destiny  out  of  the 
realm  of  chance,  and  rested  it  upon  law,  we  have  gone  a 
great  way  in  the  direction  of  the  reasonable  probability  of 
the  outcome  of  that  destiny.  If  we  are  left  to  chance,  we 
can  only  dwell  forever  in  the  domain  of  speculation.  And 
if  we  can  once  ascertain  the  nature  and  bearing  of  those 
laws,  we  may  calculate  with  considerable  certainty  on  their 
results.  We  find  the  law  which  consigns  us  to  dust  to  be  one 
of  ancient  appointment,  for,  in  the  morning  of  our  Adamic 
race,  God  said:  “Dust  thou  art,  and  unto  dust  shalt  thou 
return.”  It  was  the  simple  announcement  of  a  great  law,  and 
this  law  has  silently,  steadily,  ceaslessly  held  on  its  way,  not¬ 
withstanding  all  the  efforts  that  man  has  made  to  avert  it. 
Notwithstanding  the  learning,  the  wealth  and  the  labor 
expended  in  the  direction  of  resisting  this  law,  it  has,  without 
seeming  effort,  taken  the  old  and  the  young,  the  wise  and  the 
simple,  the  rich  and  the  poor,  and  consigned  them  all  to  the 
dust  of  the  grave.  And  it  seems  entirely  probable  that  we 
shall  find  the  judgment  day  to  be  ordered  by  law  also.  We 
shall  find  within  ourselves,  possibly,  that  on  which  the  judg¬ 
ment  day  will  turn  and  depend.  Just  as  we  find  within  us 
the  elements  on  which  the  law  of  our  dissolution  depends,  so 
we  have  about  us  mind,  memory,  conscience,  and  the  sense 
of  justice,  and  these  seem  to  be  the  basis  of  a  future  judg¬ 
ment  day. 

I  shall  pursue  the  same  course  that  was  followed  last 
Sabbath  evening — looking  at  the  subject  first  in  the  light  of 
the  Scriptures,  and  then  in  the  light  of  reason.  I  will  read 


The  Judgment  Day.  145 

first  from  the  12th  chapter  of  Ecclesiastes,  13th  and  14th 
verses  : 

Let  us  hear  the  conclusion  of  the  whole  matter :  Fear  God,  and  keep 
his  commandments  ;  for  this  is  the  whole  duty  of  man. 

For  God  shall  bring  every  work  into  judgment,  with  every  secret 
thing,  whether  it  be  good  or  whether  it  be  evil. 

Conclusions  are  usually  reached  late  in  life,  and  this  seems 
to  be  the  substance  of  the  wise  man’s  thought  and  experi¬ 
ence —  looking  over  the  whole  of  human  life  and  conduct  — 
that  its  importance  was  found  in  fearing  God  and  keeping  His 
commandments,  and  that  the  reason  for  this  was  the  fact  that 
God  would  bring  every  one  into  judgment.  I  will  next  read 
from  the  25th  chapter  of  St.  Matthew,  beginning  with  the 
21st  verse : 

When  the  Son  of  man  shall  come  in  his  glory,  and  all  the  holy  angels 
with  him,  then  shall  he  sit  upon  the  throne  of  his  glory  : 

And  before  him  shall  be  gathered  all  nations  :  and  he  shall  separate 
them  one  from  another,  as  a  shepherd  divideth  his  sheep  from  the 

goats : 

And  he  shall  set  the  sheep  on  his  right  hand,  but  the  goats  on  the  left. 

Then  shall  the  King  say  unto  them  on  his  right  hand,  Come,  ye 
blessed  of  my  Father,  inherit  the  kingdom  prepared  for  you  from  the 
foundation  of  the  world  : 

For  I  was  ahungered,  and  ye  gave  me  meat :  I  was  thirsty,  and  ye 
gave  me  drink :  I  was  a  stranger,  and  ye  took  me  in  : 

Naked,  and  ye  clothed  me  :  I  was  sick,  and  ye  visited  me  :  I  was  in 
prison,  and  ye  came  unto  me. 

Then  shall  the  righteous  answer  him,  saying,  Lord,  when  saw  we 
thee  ahungered,  and  fed  thee  ?  or  thirsty,  and  gave  thee  drink  ? 

When  saw  wo  thee  a  stranger,  and  took  thee  in?  or  naked,  and  clothed 
thee? 

Or  when  saw  we  thee  sick,  or  in  prison,  and  came  unto  thee  ? 

And  the  King  shall  answrer  and  say  unto  them,  Verily  I  say  unto  yon, 
Inasmuch  as  ye  have  done  it  unto  one  of  the  least  of  these  my  brethren, 
ye  have  done  it  unto  me. 

Then  shall  he  say  also  unto  them  on  the  left  hand.  Depart  from  me, 

10 


116 


The  Origin  and  Destiny  of  Man. 


ye  cursed,  into  everlasting  fire,  prepared  for  the  devil  and  his  angels  : 

For  I  was  ah  lingered,  and  ye  gave  me  no  meat :  I  was  thirsty,  and  ya 
gave  me  no  drink  : 

I  was  a  stranger,  and  ye  took  me  not  in  :  naked,  and  ye  clothed  ma 
not :  sick,  and  in  prison,  and  ye  visited  me  not. 

Then  shall  they  also  answer  him,  saying,  Loid,  when  saw  we  thee 
ahungered,  or  athirst,  or  a  stranger,  or  naked,  or  sick,  or  in  prison,  and 
did  not  minister  unto  thee  ? 

Then  shall  he  answer  them,  saying,  Verily  I  say  unto  you,  Inasmuch 
as  ye  did  it  not  to  one  of  the  least  of  these,  ye  did  it  not  to  me. 

The  point  I  want  to  make  from  tills  Scripture  is  that  the 
kind  of  judgment  spoken  of  is  a  continuation  of  a  life-history 
that  begins  in  this  world.  First,  we  have  in  this  chapter  the 
representation  of  the  virgins  who  went  forth  to  meet  the 
bridegroom  —  the  live  wise  ones  who  forecasted  the  future 
and  made  ready  for  the  occasion,  and  the  live  foolish  who 
lived  on  in  unconcern.  Then  we  have  the  parable  of  the  tal¬ 
ents,  in  which  it  is  said  that  the  kingdom  of  heaven  is  like 
unto  a  man  who  went  into  a  far  country,  giving  to  each  of  his 
servants  talents  according  to  his  ability,  and  upon  his  return 
he  called  each  servant  to  account  for  the  talents  entrusted  to 
him.  These  talents  may  represent  the  different  number  of 
years  we  live ;  to  some  are  given  ten  years,  to  some  twenty, 
to  some  forty,  and  it  may  be  the  parable  teaches  that  we  shall 
be  called  to  a  reckoning  for  the  time  placed  at  onr  disposal. 
Or  the  talents  may  represent  the  different  conditions  of  life ; 
some  have  plenty  of  money,  they  are  blessed  with  advantages 
for  education,  and  have  many  opportunities  for  doing  good ; 
while  others  are  born  to  poverty  and  ignorance,  and  have  but 
little  power  to  benefit  their  fellows.  Or  they  may  represent 
the  gradations  of  ability  among  men  :  some  have  great  talents 


The  Judgment  Day. 


147 


in  tlie  direction  of  song,  in  tlie  direction  of  reason,  of  oratory, 
of  love,  of  faith.  Then  possibly  we  shall  be  called  to  answer 
for  the  powers  that  are  entrusted  to  us  in  this  world,  the 
places  of  trust  we  have  held.  And  when  it  is  asked  in  the 
last  day,  Who  are  these  that  come  up  to  pass  before  the 
Judge  ?  we  must  turn  to  the  earth-history,  and  find  there  the 
starting  point  we  seek.  The  talent-bearers  all  started  down 
in  the  earth-life  ;  without  the  starting  down  here  there  would 
be  no  occasion  for  the  judgment  beyond.  So  it  is  that  the 
judgment  is  not  an  isolated  fact.  It  is  rather  a  part  of  the 
history  of  this  life.  It  grows  out  of  the  fact  of  man’s  account¬ 
ability  in  this  life,  out  of  the  fact  that  man  is  on  probation. 
I  will  read  one  verse  from  the  17th  chapter  of  Acts  : 

Because  he  hath  appointed  a  day,  in  the  which  he  will  judge  the  world 
in  righteousness  by  that  man  whom  he  hath  ordained  ;  whereof  he  hath 
given  assurance  unto  all  men,  in  that  he  hath  raised  him  from  the  dead. 

In  this  chapter  the  apostle  is  arguing  that  God  winked  at 
the  times  of  past  ignorance,  but  now  commands  all  men 
to  repent  because  He  hath  appointed  a  day  in  which  He  will 
judge  the  world.  He  bases  the  truth  of  this  fact  on  the  other 
fact  that  God  has  raised  Christ  from  the  dead.  In  our  last 
discourse,  you  will  remember,  particular  weight  was  laid  on 
Paul’s  argument  for  the  resurrection.  The  apostle  based  his 
whole  argument  for  the  resurrection  of  man  on  the  resurrec¬ 
tion  of  Christ.  This  resurrection  stands  prominently  in  the 
argument,  because  the  consequences  that  would  follow  if  it 
were  not  true  were  such  as  to  make  any  other  conclusion  im¬ 
possible.  And  here  he  makes  the  judgment  an  assured  fact, 
because  of,  and  as  related  to,  the  resurrection  of  Christ.  If 


148 


The  Origin  and  Destiny  of  Man. 


Christ  is  risen,  then  is  the  judgment  a  fact.  I  read  next  the 
10th  verse  of  the  5th  chapter  of  Second  Corinthians  : 

For  we  must  all  appear  before  the  judgment  seat  of  Christ;  that 
every  one  may  receive  the  things  done  in  his  body,  according  to  that  h* 
hath  done,  whether  it  be  good  or  bad. 

This  verse  is  so  clear  and  definite  that  I  shall  add  no  word 
to  it.  I  will  read  two  verses  from  the  4th  chapter  of  Thessa- 
lonians  : 

For  the  Lord  himself  shall  descend  from  heaven  with  a  shout,  with 
the  voice  of  the  archangel,  and  with  the  trump  of  God :  and  the  dead  in 
Christ  shall  rise  first. 

Then  we  which  are  alive  and  remain  shall  be  caught  up  together  with 
them  in  the  clouds,  to  meet  the  Lord  in  the  air :  and  so  shall  we  ever 
be  with  the  Lord. 

I  will  read  also  a  few  verses  from  the  3d  chapter  of  Second 
Peter,  beginning  with  the  10th  verse  : 

But  the  day  of  the  Lord  will  come  as  a  thief  in  the  night ;  in  the 
which  the  heavens  shall  pass  away  with  a  great  noise,  and  the  elements 
shall  melt  with  fervent  heat,  the  earth  also  and  the  works  that  are 
therein  shall  be  burned  up. 

Seeing  then  that  all  these  things  shall  be  dissolved,  what  manner  of 
persons  ought  ye  to  be  in  all  holy  conversation  and  godliness. 

Looking  for  and  hasting  unto  the  coming  of  the  day  of  God,  wherein 
the  heavens  being  on  fire  shall  be  dissolved,  and  the  elements  shall 
melt  with  fervent  heat? 

Nevertheless  we,  according  to  his  promise,  look  for  new  heavens  and 
a  new  earth,  wherein  dwelleth  righteousness. 

In  tlie  verse  from  Tliessalonians  the  coming  of  the  Lord  is 
represented  to  be  heralded  by  the  last  trump,  and  attended 
by  the  rising  of  the  dead,  and  there  seems  also  to  be  the 
thought  that  at  the  last  day  there  is  to  be  a  dissolution  of  the 
structure  of  our  earth.  I  am  not  certain,  in  my  own  mind, 
as  to  how  much  of  this  is  to  be  taken  in  a  figurative  and  how 


The  Judgment  Day. 


149 


much  in  a  literal  sense.  Of  this,  however,  we  may  be  sure, 
that  even  so  great  an  event  as  the  end  of  our  world  is  not  at 
all  improbable.  It  is  not  probable  that  God  will  always  con¬ 
tinue  the  race  on  this  earth  in  its  present  condition.  When 
we  turn  to  astronomy,  our  authors  are  full  of  teachings  that 
there  are  burned-out  worlds,  that  there  are  deaths  of  worlds 
as  well  as  births  of  worlds.  Dr.  Clarke  thinks  there  is  a  sci¬ 
entific  accuracy  in  this  picture  of  the  destruction  of  our  world 
at  the  last  day.  It  is  stated  here,  further,  that  “the  heavens 
shall  pass  away  with  a  great  noise,  and  the  elements  shall 
melt  with  fervent  heat.”  It  is  a  known  fact  that  electricity  is 
an  agent  that  has  the  power  to  separate  water  into  its  com¬ 
ponent  gases.  Now  the  aerial  heavens  surrounding  our  earth 
support  a  great  quantity  of  watery  vapor.  It  is  also  known 
that  the  heavens  are  highly  charged  with  electricity,  and  it  is 
supposed  that  all  that  would  be  necessary  to  a  literal  fulfill¬ 
ment  of  this  Scripture  would  be  such  an  action  of  electricity 
upon  the  waters  of  the  earth  and  the  vapors  in  the  clouds,  as 
would  resolve  them  back  into  their  primitive  gases,  leaving 
the  oxygen  by  itself  and  the  hydrogen  by  itself.  These  prim¬ 
itive  elements  of  water  are  highly  inflammable  and  explosive. 
You  put  one  drop  of  water  on  an  anvil,  and  place  over  it  a 
bar  of  hot  iron,  and  strike  it  with  a  hammer,  and  there  is  a 
noise  equal  to  the  report  of  a  gun.  If  this  action  of  electricity 
on  water  be  the  method  of  the  earth’s  final  destruction,  it  is 
reasonable  to  suppose  that  there  would  be  successive  explo¬ 
sions  of  the  particles  of  the  waters  composing  the  oceans  and 
seas  of  the  earth  and  the  vapors  of  the  clouds.  And  as  these 
elements  are  highly  inflammable,  the  earth  might  be  wrapped 


150 


The  Origin  and  Destiny  of  Man. 


in  a  great  conflagration,  even  tlie  “elements  melting  with  fer¬ 
vent  lieat.”  “We  look  for  new  heavens  and  a  new  earth.” 
Nothing  is  finally  destroyed.  Out  of  the  fiery  ordeal  a  heaven 
and  an  earth,  grander  and  more  beautiful,  shall  arise,  in 
which  righteousness  shall  dwell. 

There  is  one  more  Scripture  I  will  read,  and  then  pass  to 
consider  the  subject  in  another  light.  In  the  20th  chapter  of 
Revelation,  lltli  and  12th  verses,  we  have  this  Scripture  : 

And  I  saw  a  great  white  throne,  and  him  that  sat  on  it,  from  whose 
face  the  earth  and  the  heaven  fled  away  :  and  there  was  found  no  place 
for  them. 

And  I  saw  the  dead,  small  and  great,  stand  before  God;  and  the 
books  were  opened ;  and  another  book  was  opened,  which  is  the  book 
of  life  :  and  the  dead  were  judged  out  cf  those  things  which  were  writ¬ 
ten  in  the  books,  according  to  their  works. 

Before  passing  to  look  at  the  subject  in  the  light  of  reason, 
I  want  to  give  an  example  of  how  it  was  viewed  by  the 
ancients.  I  quote  from  memory  from  the  writings  of  Plato. 
It  is  recorded  in  the  book  of  Plato  called  the  Georgias,  that 
Socrates,  in  his  disputations  with  the  Skeptics  on  the  things 
that  lie  beyond  this  life,  gives  this  legend  :  That  the  custom 
used  to  be  to  judge  men  before  they  died,  but  that  con^laints 
reached  the  earth  in  regard  to  the  judgments  passed  here, 
both  from  the  Elysian  fields  and  from  the  regions  of  Pluto. 
It  was  said  that  persons  would  arrive  in  the  Elysian  planes 
whose  character  was  such  as  not  to  merit  everlasting  bliss ; 
and,  on  the  other  hand,  persons  were  sent  to  the  regions  of 
Pluto  who  did  not  deserve  endless  punishment.  Hearing 
these  complaints,  the  gods  took  counsel  together,  and  rea¬ 
soned  that  it  is  not  well  to  judge  men  in  this  life,  because 


The  Judgment  Day . 


151 


around  their  death-beds  may  assemble  influences  that  ought 
not  to  weigh  at  such  a  time  and  on  such  a  matter  —  the  influ¬ 
ence  of  money,  of  intellect,  of  social  standing,  of  friendship. 
Moreover,  you  may  not  be  able  to  get  accurately  at  the  true 
worth  of  their  lives.  After  due  deliberation,  therefore,  the 
gods  resolved  to  remove  the  power  of  judgment  from  the 
earth,  and  appointed  three  judges  :  one  for  Asia,  one  for 
Africa,  and  one  for  Europe  —  Ehadamanthus,  Minos,  and 
Eachus.  These  judges  were  stationed  in  the  meadow  just 
beyond  life,  where  the  paths  met  and  parted,  and  the  dead 
came  unto  them,  not  in  the  body-form,  but  as  spirits.  It  was 
argued  that  if  a  man  be  large  before  death,  his  body  will  be 
large  after  death.  If  he  be  beautiful  before  death,  he  will  be 
beautiful  after  death.  If  his  bodv  be  coarse  in  life,  so  will  he 
be  after  death.  If  it  has  received  scars  in  this  life,  it  will 
carry  those  scars  after  death.  And  so  of  the  soul :  if  in  this 
life  it  be  coarse  or  refined,  good  or  bad,  if  it  be  pure  and 
beautiful  or  scarred  and  diseased  —  whatever  it  be  in  this  life, 
it  will  be  the  same  after  death.  When  a  soul  came  into  the 
presence  of  these  judges,  they  knew  not  whether  it  was  a  rich 
man  or  a  poor  man,  king  or  jmasant.  All  they  saw  was  the 
character,  and  they  judged  only  by  the  character ;  and  so 
judging,  no  more  complaints  reached  the  world  of  unjust 
judgments.  I  have  related  this  as  an  instance  from  classical 
literature  of  the  thought  of  the  ancient  mind  as  to  the  final 
judgment. 

I  want  now  to  look  at  the  subject  in  the  light  of  reason. 
Among  the  sentiments  of  which  we  are  conscious,  that  of  jus¬ 
tice  is  prominent  —  the  sentiment  of  right,  the  feeling  that  in 


152 


The  Origin  and  Destiny  of  Man. 


some  way  justice  should  be  and  will  be  accorded  to  all.  This 
sentiment  is  so  strong  that,  if  it  have  permission  to  speak,  it 
will  not  rest  if  injustice  be  done  to  any,  or  if  any  fail  to  have 
justice  accorded  to  them.  It  is  also  felt  that  the  judgments 
of  this  world  are  uncertain,  that  justice  is  not  and  cannot 
always  be  meted  out  to  men  on  earth.  Lawyers  are  familiar 
with  cases  where  men,  after  an  impartial  trial,  have  been  sen¬ 
tenced  to  death  and  executed,  and  after  all  facts  have  come  to 
light  that  proved  their  innocence.  And  it  is  not  enough  that 
the  juries  that  convicted  them  have  gone  out  and  planted  the 
white  flag  above  their  graves  ;  they  could  not  undo  what  they 
had  done.  Reason  points  to  a  higher  tribunal,  where  there 
can  be  no  mistakes ;  where  final  and  even  justice  shall  be 
done  to  all.  It  points  to  the  future  for  this  judgment,  from 
the  fact  that  in  the  jiresent  the  proofs  are  not  all  at  hand. 
God  is  in  a  sense  judging  men  all  the  time ;  and  men  are 
judging  themselves,  as  they  array  themselves  on  one  side  or 
the  other  of  great  principles.  But  the  influence  of  our  lives 
does  not  terminate  with  life  itself,  and  until  all  the  influences 
of  each  life  can  be  determined,  there  can  be  no  final  judg¬ 
ment.  Take  the  lives  of  Thomas  Paine  and  John  Wesley. 
Paine  was  an  infidel,  possibly  an  honest  infidel.  He  has  been 
greatly  abused  by  the  church.  He  wrote  many  things  that 
have  been  very  injurious  to  the  human  mind.  He  set  many 
influences  at  work  in  this  world  for  error  that  have  not  vet 

been  arrested,  and  mav  not  be  arrested  till  the  end  of  time. 

'  */ 

It  is  impossible  to  judge  Thomas  Paine  and  mete  out  justice 
according  to  the  deeds  done  in  the  bodv  till  the  final  influ- 
ence  of  his  writings  may  be  estimated.  John  Wesley  labored 


The  Judgment  Day. 


153 


in  another  direction.  He  labored  to  build  up  faith,  not  to 
tear  it  down  ;  he  believed  in  the  Bible,  and  worked  for  God, 
and  not  till  time  shall  be  no  more  can  all  the  sweet  and  holy 
influences  he  set  in  motion  be  estimated  in  the  good  they 
have  wrought  for  the  human  family.  Take  Alexander,  whose 
ambition  led  him  to  a  career  of  conquest  that  drenched  the 
world  in  blood,  and  whose  example  has  not  yet  ceased  to  have 
its  influence  on  the  human  mind  ;  or  Napoleon,  whose  ambi¬ 
tion  filled  Europe  with  war.  None  of  us  can  estimate  the 
good  or  the  evil  we  may  have  done  till  the  influence  of  our 
life  here  is  seen  in  the  last  day.  Hence,  while  the  sentiment 
of  justice  demands  an  impartial  judgment,  reason  pushes  that 
judgment  into  the  far  future. 

Reason  argues  the  methods  oi  judgment  from  an  analysis 
of  the  human  mind  and  heart.  "We  read  in  Revelation  of  the 
opening  of  books,  and  of  the  dead  being  judged  out  of  these 
books.  I  think  the  meaning  of  this  is  not  that  God  has  angels 
who  keep  actual  books,  recording  therein  all  human  events, 
but  that  there  is  a  great  book  of  God  kept  in  each  human 
heart.  These  books  are  the  books  of  our  own  nature.  There 
Is  the  book  of  memory,  and  the  book  of  conscience.  Take 
memory,  that  power  which  conserves  all  that  the  mind  has 
received,  the  thoughts  as  well  as  the  events  of  the  past.  We 
may  suppose  that  the  great  bulk  of  what  we  have  learned  is 
in  time  forgotten.  The  probability  is  that  nothing  of  what  is 
once  lodged  in  the  mind  is  lost.  Sir  William  Hamilton  gives 
many  instances  of  the  marvelous  power  of  memory.  He  tells 
of  a  Corsican  youth,  noted  for  this  faculty,  who  was  brought 
before  judges  and  put  to  a  test  of  his  power.  Men  read  for 


154  The  Origin  and  Destiny  of  Man. 

hours  in  various  languages,  and  when  they  were  all  done,  this 
youth  went  on  and  repeated,  word  for  word,  all  that  had  been 
read.  There  are  instances  of  persons  being  able  to  repeat 
hundreds  of  verses  read  in  tlieir  hearing.  Even  the  slightest 
impressions  upon  the  mind  are  never  wholly  lost.  There  is  a 
case  recorded  in  medical  books  of  a  young  lady  who  was 
taken  ill,  and  who,  while  in  delirium,  talked  in  Latin,  Greek 
and  Hebrew.  She  had  never  studied  those  languages,  and 
the  people  were  amazed.  It  was  supposed  she  was  inspired. 
Scientific  men  investigated  the  matter,  and  found  that  some 
years  before  she  had  been  servant  to  a  clergyman.  A  German 
scholar  was  called  in,  who  took  down  these  utterances,  and  it 
was  ascertained  that  they  were  quotations  from  ancient  au¬ 
thors,  which  the  girl  had  heard  the  clergyman  repeat  as  he 
walked  back  and  forth  in  his  study.  There  are  instances  of 
persons  nearly  losing  their  lives  by  drowning,  where  the  mind 
is  so  aroused  in  the  moment  of  peril  that  all  the  events  of  the 
past  spring  at  once  to  the  foreground.  Now,  if  what  I  am 
saying  be  true,  and  it  seems  to  be  founded  on  the  nature  of 
mind,  we  carry  within  us  the  great  book  of  memory,  and 
memory  has  only  to  turn  her  pages  to  the  long-lost  and  for¬ 
gotten  deeds  that  have  been  done,  to  the  words  spoken  in 
anger,  to  the  profane  speech  or  the  heartfelt  prayer,  to  the 
words  of  kindness  and  the  deeds  of  love.  They  may  seem  to 
have  passed  from  memory,  yet  will  they  stand  out  in  con¬ 
sciousness  in  the  last  day. 

Take  conscience,  that  strange  monitor  whose  office  is  to  dis¬ 
approve  that  which  the  mind  thinks  is  wrong,  to  approve  that 
which  the  mind  thinks  is  right ;  which  is  ever  impelling  us  in 


The  Judgment  Day. 


155 


the  direction  of  right,  and  holding  us  back  from  wrong.  Take 
the  book  of  conscience  along  with  the  book  of  memory,  and 
as  the  pages  of  memory  are  turned,  and  the  deeds  therein 
recorded  are  pointed  out,  conscience  will  be  there  present, 
saying:  “There  I  cautioned  you  against  the  approach  of 
temptation  ;  there  I  condemned  that  angry  word,  that  wicked 
thought,  that  evil  deed  ;  there  I  approved  that  act  of  charity, 
that  word  of  kindness.”  We  have  the  elements  of  judgment 
within  us.  We  carry  about  us  the  records  on  which  we  will 
be  judged  in  the  last  day.  And  reason  and  revelation  both 
point  to  the  solemn  fact  that  each  one,  however  he  may  seek 
to  hide  away  from  himself,  or  from  his  God,  must  at  last 
stand  face  to  face  with  all  he  has  thought  or  done ;  must 
stand  face  to  face  with  conscience  and  the  highest  sense  of 
right.  The  hour  will  come  when  the  darkness  can  no  longer 
conceal,  and  when  the  noise  of  passion  can  no  longer  drown 
the  voice  of  judgment.  Oh  !  what  shall  it  be  to  be  alone 
with  memory,  alone  with  conscience  !  The  everlasting  prin¬ 
ciples  of  justice  will  bring  us  each  to  that  tribunal  sooner  or 
later. 

I  have  said  that  we  cannot  tell  what  will  be  the  outward 
attendants  of  the  judgment  day.  We  cannot  tell  whether  this 
final  trump  is  that  which  arouses  the  consciences  of  men,  or 
whether  it  is  some  great  awakening  that  shall  call  forth  the 
dead  ;  or  whether  the  throne  of  God  shall  be  erected  in  mid¬ 
heavens,  or  in  the  chambers  of  the  soul.  The  central  point  is 
that  there  is  to  be  a  judgment  where  all  shall  answer  for  the 
deeds  done  in  the  body  and  justice  be  done  to  each  one.  In 
this  there  is  certainly  something  that  commends  itself  to  all 


156 


The  Origin  and  Destiny  of  Man. 


right-minded  people.  There  is  nothing  in  the  judgment  day 
that  should  fill  candid-minded,  prayerful  men  with  fear.  I 
believe  that  God  is  father,  God  is  love ;  Christ  is  brother, 
Christ  is  judge.  And  though  my  life  may  not  have  been  all 
that  it  could  have  been  or  that  it  should  have  been,  I  am  not 
unwilling  that  that  life  shall  go  before  God.  There  is  some¬ 
thing  remarkable  in  man’s  heart  in  its  readiness  to  go  to  God. 
Men  will  turn  to  God  in  the  supreme  moments  of  their  lives, 
the  moments  of  great  anguish  or  profound  joy,  when  they 
will  not  turn  to  each  other.  They  know  that  His  judgments 
are  true  and  righteous.  Let  me  entreat  you,  then,  to  be  care¬ 
ful  of  this  great  book  of  memory.  "Write  on  its  leaves  such 
lines  as  you  would  have  read  in  the  last  day.  Put  on  its  pages 
such  pictures  as  the  ages  may  look  at  and  be  the  better  for 
seeing.  Pill  it  up  with  good  thoughts,  good  words,  good 
deeds.  So  live  in  an  approving  conscience  as  to  merit  the 
approval  of  the  Great  Judge.  So  live  that  conscience  will 
approve  now,  and  you  need  not  fear  what  conscience  will  say 
in  the  great  day. 


XII. 


THE  QUESTION  OF  FUTUEE  PUNISHMENT. 


And  these  shall  go  away  into  everlasting  punishment :  but  the  right¬ 
eous  into  life  eternal.— Matthew,  xxv,  46. 

WE  have  reached  a  point  in  these  discourses,  my 
friends,  when  it  seems  not  only  proper  but  necessary 
to  consider  the  question  of  future  punishment.  The 
theme  is  not  a  pleasant  one.  We  naturally  turn  aside  from 
the  contemplation  of  suffering,  and  in  these  discourses  I 
would  gladly  pass  this  subject  in  silence  did  the  interests  of 
truth  permit.  But  we  must  bring  ourselves  to  the  task  of 
looking  at  both  the  pleasant  and  the  unpleasant  phases  of  the 
different  questions  we  wrould  study  ;  and  take  whatever  view 
we  may  of  this  subject,  it  is  not  free  from  difficulty.  There  is 
a  darkness  that  hangs  about  the  problem  of  evil  that  is  not 
readily  dissipated,  whether  considered  as  to  its  origin,  its 
progress,  or  its  final  issue.  The  wisest  and  best  of  our  world 
have  not  been  able  to  agree  as  to  its  solution.  It  has  long 
been  in  controversy,  and  will  probably  continue  in  contro¬ 
versy  ;  and  possibly,  from  the  controversial  standpoint,  each 
party  could  wish  that  truth  were  on  their  side.  It  is,  how¬ 
ever,  a  much  higher  and  better  thing  for  us  all  to  desire  to  be 


158  The  Origin  and  Destiny  of  Man. 

on  the  side  of  truth.  It  is  better  to  be  on  the  side  of  truth 
than  to  plant  ourselves  on  some  proposition,  and  then  want 
truth  to  come  on  our  side.  F or  we  must  remember  that  truth 
will  endure.  It  is  not  affected  by  our  views  concerning  it. 
Whatever  may  be  my  views  in  reference  to  any  g  en  fact,  the 
fact  remains.  My  belief  or  unbelief  cannot  change  it. 

Were  we  for  the  first  time  in  life  to  stand  in  the  ju’esence  of 
an  array  of  men  drawn  up  with  pointed  guns,  and  look  upon 
the  victim  about  to  receive  their  deadly  aim,  our  sympathies 
would  at  once  turn  to  that  man,  and  we  would  say  that  he 
should  be  released.  Were  we  to  look  for  the  first  time  at  the 
law,  through  its  officers,  arresting,  condemning,  sentencing, 
and  then  executing  a  culprit,  our  sympathies  would  at  once 
say,  “Release  that  man  !  Don’t  take  his  life  !  ”  Had  we  from 
some  fairy  world  come  down  to  this  earth  on  a  bright  spring 
day,  and  should  we,  while  looking  out  on  every  scene  of 
beauty,  journey  by  the  jail,  and  should  we  be  told  that  hun¬ 
dreds  of  men  were  there  locked  in  behind  iron  doors,  we 
would  at  once  say,  “  Set  them  free  !  ”  But  not  till  we  should 
be  brought  to  see  these  circumstances  in  all  their  bearings  in 
the  light  of  the  facts  of  this  world,  should  we  be  in  a  condi¬ 
tion  to  judge  correctly.  Hot  till  we  should  know  all  the  facts 
that  lie  back  of  war  and  crime,  could  we  decide  whether  it 
were  best  for  that  man  to  be  shot,  whether  it  were  best  for 
those  men  in  prison  to  be  set  free.  So  of  the  subject  we  are 
now  to  consider.  We  must  not  project  our  thoughts  into 
the  far  beyond,  and  there  consider  the  subject  of  after-death 
punishment  as  an  abstraction.  The  question,  in  any  broad 
sense,  can  be  studied  only  in  its  relation  to  facts  both  human 


The  Question  of  Future  Punishment. 


159 


and  divine.  It  can  be  studied  in  a  broad  sense  only  when  we 
remember  tliat  there  is  such  a  thing  as  right,  such  a  thing  as 
wrong ;  that  right  is  not  an  arbitrary  dictation  of  some  sover¬ 
eign  power,  but  is  something  that  resides  in  the  very  nature 
nature  of  things.  "We  must  also  recognize  the  other  fact,  that 
there  is  such  a  thing  in  this  world  as  sin.  Y^e  must  recog¬ 
nize  the  fact,  too,  of  a  divinely  established  government ;  that 
not  only  has  God  established  laws  by  which  he  rules  the  nat¬ 
ural  world,  but  there  is  also  a  moral  law,  and  that  God  has 
come  forth  in  this  world  in  organized  government ;  that  this 
government  is  for  the  prevention  of  wrong,  for  the  protection 
of  right,  and  the  jireservation  of  order  in  His  dominions. 
And  I  think,  if  we  would  look  at  the  subject  fairly  and  under- 
stanclingly,  we  must  recognize  still  another  fact :  that  men 
are  forming  character  here,  and  that  with  this  character  they 
are  passing  beyond  into  the  other  state. 

If  the  subject  had  never  been  raised  before,  and  we  had 
proceeded  thus  far  in  its  consideration,  the  question  would 
arise :  "What  is  the  condition  in  the  other  world  of  the  un¬ 
good  ?  And  would  we  not  be  led  to  suppose  that  there  would 
be  a  difference  in  that  world  between  the  good  and  the  bad  ? 
It  is  not,  however,  a  new  question,  and  it  has  gathered  about 
itself  no  little  literature.  It  is  not  only  interesting  to  know 
what  is  true,  but  to  know  wdiat  men  have  thought  to  be  true  ; 
and  so  it  may  be  both  instinctive  and  profitable  to  dwell  for 
a  time  on  the  theories  that  have  been  and  still  are  held  on 
this  subject.  First,  there  is  the  theory  of  what  are  called  the 
orthodox  churches.  That  theory,  briefly  stated,  is  the  theory 
of  endless  punishment.  It  is  held  not  only  by  what  are 


160 


The  Origin  and  Destiny  of  Man. 


known  as  the  orthodox  churches  of  the  Protestant  faith,  but 
is  also  the  doctrine  of  the  Homan  Catholic  church.  Though 
it  is  true  that  the  Catholic  church  holds  to  the  theory  of  a 
period  of  after-death  probation,  or  purgatory,  it  teaches  the 
doctrine  of  endless  suffering.  I  will  read  a  few  texts  from  the 
Scriptures  upon  which  this  doctrine  has  usually  been  based. 
The  first  is  the  text  from  which  I  am  speaking  :  “And  these 
shall  go  away  into  everlasting  punishment,  but  the  righteous 
into  life  eternal.”  The  argument  here  is  that  the  same  Greek 
word  is  employed  to  state  the  duration  of  the  punishment  of 
the  wicked  that  is  used  to  state  the  duration  of  the  happiness 
of  the  righteous.  If  the  doctrine  of  endless  punishment  is 
taught  anywhere  in  the  Bible,  it  is  taught  here  ;  and  this  text 
does  seem  to  fairly  teach  it.  And  yet  it  is  but  just  to  state 
that  not  a  few  good  scholars  claim  that  the  words  may  be 
fairly  rendered,  and  that  the  meaning  is,  that  souls  shall  go, 
not  into  unending  punishment,  but  into  the  punishment  of 
eternity,  and  the  life  of  eternity,  as  carried  over  and  distin¬ 
guished  from  the  punishments  and  rewards  of  time.  It  is  a 
fact,  also,  that  the  word  translated  “punishment”  carries  the 
idea  of  eloping  or  pruning,  of  restriction,  or  restraint,  of 
chastisement,  and  this  would  seem  to  be  for  the  purpose  of 
improvement.  Then  there  is  the  text  found  in  the  9th  chapter 
of  Mark,  43d  to  the  48th  verse : 

And  if  thy  hand  offend  thee,  cut  it  off :  it  is  better  for  thee  to  enter 
into  life  maimed,  than  having  two  hands  to  go  into  hell,  into  the  fire 
that  never  shall  be  quenched  : 

Where  their  worm  dieth  not,  and  the  fire  is  not  quenched. 

And  if  thy  foot  offend  thee,  cut  it  off :  it  is  better  for  thee  to  enter 
halt  into  life,  than  having  two  feet  to  be  cast  into  hell,  into  the  fire  that 
never  shail  be  quenched ; 


The  Question  of  Future  Punishment.  161 

Where  their  w  orm  dieth  not,  and  the  fire  is  not  quenched. 

And  if  thine  eye  offend  thee,  pluck  it  out :  it  is  better  for  thee  to  enter 
into  the  kingdom  of  God  with  one  eye,  than  having  two  eyes  to  be  cast 

into  hell  fire : 

Where  their  worm  dieth  not,  and  the  fire  is  not  quenched. 

Then  there  are  the  ‘28th  and  29th  verses  of  the  5th  chapter 
of  St.  John  : 

Marvel  not  at  this  :  for  the  hour  is  coming  in  the  which  all  that  are  in 
the  graves  shall  hear  his  voice, 

And  shall  come  forth  :  they  that  have  done  good,  unto  the  resurrec¬ 
tion  of  life ;  and  they  that  have  done  evil,  unto  the  resurrection  of 

damnation. 

Then  there  is  the  parable  of  the  rich  man  and  Lazarus, 
recorded  in  the  16tli  chapter  of  Luke.  The  substance  of  the 
parable  is  that  there  were  two  men,  one  living  in  wealth  and 
ease,  and  the  other  a  beggar  at  his  gate.  The  beggar  died 
and  was  carried  by  the  angels  into  Abraham’s  bosom.  The 
rich  man  also  died,  and  was  buried,  and  in  hell,  being  in  tor¬ 
ment,  and  seeing  Lazarus  afar  off,  he  cried  that  he  might 
come  and  bring  him  relief.  But  Abraham  answered  him,  say¬ 
ing  there  was  an  impassable  gulf  between  him  and  Lazarus. 

There  is  another  class  of  Scriptures,  which  teach  that  cer¬ 
tain  sins  exclude  from  the  kingdom  of  heaven.  The  first  I 
read  is  from  First  Corinthians,  6th  chapter,  9th  and  10th 
verses  : 

Know  ye  not  that  the  unrighteous  shall  not  inherit  the  kingdom  of 
God?  Be  not  deceived:  neither  fornicators,  nor  idolaters,  nor  adulter¬ 
ers,  nor  effeminate,  nor  abusers  of  themselves  with  mankind, 

Nor  thieves,  nor  covetous,  nor  drunkards,  nor  revilers,  nor  extortion¬ 
ers,  shall  inherit  the  kingdom  of  God. 

And  similar  teaching  is  found  in  Galatians,  5th  chapter,  the 

19th  to  the  21st  verse  : 

11 


162 


The  Origin  and  Destiny  of  Man. 


Now  the  works  of  the  flesh  are  manifest,  which  are  these  :  adultery, 
fornication,  uncleanness,  lasciviousness, 

Idolatry,  witchcraft,  hatred,  variance,  emulations,  wrath,  strife,  sedi¬ 
tions,  heresies, 

Envyings,  murders,  drunkenness,  revelings,  and  such  like :  of  the 
which  I  tell  you  before,  as  I  have  also  told  you  in  time  past,  that 
they  which  do  such  things  shall  not  inherit  the  kingdom  of  God. 

From  Ephesians,  5th  chapter,  5th  verse,  I  read  : 

For  this  ye  know,  that  no  whoremonger,  nor  unclean  person,  nor  cov¬ 
etous  man,  who  is  an  idolater,  hath  any  inheritance  in  the  kingdom  of 
Christ  and  of  God. 

From  the  21st  chapter  of  Revelation,  I  read  the  27th  verse  : 

And  there  shall  in  no  wise  enter  into  it  anything  that  defileth,  neither 
whatsoever  worketli  abomination,  or  maketh  a  lie  :  but  they  which  are 
written  in  the  Lamb’s  book  of  life. 

These  are  some  of  the  texts  on  which  this  doctrine  of  endless 
punishment  has  been  based.  I  would  state,  however,  that 
there  is  not  a  practical  agreement  among  teachers  of  the  ortho¬ 
dox  school  as  to  the  grounds  of  this  punishment.  Dr.  Bledsoe, 
the  author  of  ‘'Theodicy,”  a  wrork  of  great  strength  and 
merit,  says  it  is  not  strange  that  men  have  found  themselves 
unable  to  believe  in  the  doctrine  of  endless  misery,  because  it 
has  been  based  upon  the  sins  of  this  life,  and  it  is  unreasona¬ 
ble  to  suppose  that  the  sins  of  the  brief  life  of  man  here  will 
receive  an  eternity  of  punishment.  The  only  true  ground  for 
eternal  punishment,  he  says,  is  the  ground  of  eternal  sinning ; 
and  he  holds  that  men  will  sin  eternally,  and  therefore  they 
will  in  justice  suffer  eternally.  I  think  Dr.  Bledsoe's  argu¬ 
ment  breaks  down  in  this  :  he  teaches  that  it  is  not  for  the 
sins  of  this  life,  but  for  eternal  sinning  that  men  will  receive 
endless  punishment.  Now  if  it  is  not  a  fact  that  the  sins  of 
this  life  so  determine  character  that  men  will  as  a  consequence 


The  Question  of  Future  Punishment.  163 

sin  forever,  then  in  the  other  state  men  may  reach  a  point 
where  they  will  cease  sinning,  and  then  according  to  his  own 
theory  their  punishment  will  come  to  an  end ;  but  if  the  sins 
of  this  life  necessitate  endless  sinning,  then  it  is  virtually  the 
deeds  done  in  the  body  for  which  men  are  to  be  punished 
eternally. 

Dr.  Landis,  in  his  work  on  immortality,  holds  to  the  doc¬ 
trine  that  it  is  for  the  sins  of  this  life  that  men  are  to  suffer 
eternally.  The  general  argument  advanced  in  behalf  of  this 
doctrine  is  briefly  this  :  that  God  is  judge  as  well  as  father ; 
that  justice  is  an  attribute  of  His  character  as  well  as  love  and 
mercy ;  that  the  period  of  probation  looking  to  the  develop¬ 
ment  of  character  must,  in  the  nature  of  things,  have  an  end 
some  time  ;  and  that  however  long  you  may  make  that  proba¬ 
tion,  whether  it  be  seventy  or  seventy  thousand  years,  to  be  a 
probation,  it  must  some  time  come  to  an  end  ;  and  whenever 
it  does  end,  then  beyond  that  is  eternity. 

I  now  pass  from  these  general  statements  of  the  theories 
of  eternal  punishment  to  another  doctrine  held  on  this  sub¬ 
ject — the  doctrine  of  the  Universalist  church.  The  old  school 
Universalists  taught  that  there  was  salvation  immediately 
after  death  for  all  souls.  They  seem  to  have  had  the  thought 
that  sinning  related  solely  to  the  things  of  this  life,  and  that 
when  the  spirit  left  the  body  it  was  freed  from  the  conse¬ 
quences  of  sin  and  went  at  once  into  happiness.  The  later 
school  of  Universalists  hold  to  an  after-death  punishment,  but 
to  final  salvation.  There  are  two  routes  by  which  they  reach 
their  result.  One  is  the  Calvinistic  route.  The  Calvinists 
teach,  and  the  Westminster  confession  of  faitli  teaches,  that 


164 


The  Origin  and  Destiny  of  Man. 


all  for  whom  Christ  died  will  certainly  be  saved.  The  Calvin- 
istic  branch  of  Universalists  take  the  Bible  and  very  easily 
prove  that  Christ  died  for  all ;  then  they  logically  reach  the 
conclusion  that  all  wull  be  saved.  I  am  very  frank  to  say  that 
if  I  were  a  Calvinist,  I  could  not  be  less  than  a  Universalist. 
The  other  route  leads  its  travelers  by  the  freedom  of  the 
human  will.  They  hold  that  all  punishment  must  be  correc¬ 
tive  ;  that  the  object  of  its  infliction  must  be  reformatory. 
Adding  this  to  the  thought  of  the  sovereignty  of  God,  and 
the  thought  of  the  infinite  love  of  God,  and  they  claim  that 
men  will  some  time  reach  a  point  where  they  will  cease  to  sin; 
ceasing  to  sin,  they  will  begin  to  rise  ;  rising,  they  will  ulti¬ 
mately  reach  the  plane  of  perfect  bliss.  The  main  difficulty  that 
I  see  in  this  doctrine — admitting  after-death  probation — is 
this:  how  can  you  certainly  predicate  in  regard  to  a  free  being 
that  there  will  be  a  reform  in  conduct  and  character  ?  I  will 
bring  to  your  notice  a  few  of  the  texts  on  which  Universalists 
found  their  belief.  The  first  is  the  parable  of  the  prodigal 
son.  I  will  not  read  it,  as  it  is  somewhat  lengthy,  and  all  are 
familiar  with  it.  It  represents  a  younger  and  an  elder  son. 
The  younger  leaves  his  home  and  goes  out  into  the  world  to 
seek  his  fortune,  falling  into  evil  courses,  and  wasting  his 
substance  in  riotous  living.  When  he  is  reduced  to  poverty 
and  distress,  thoughts  come  to  him  of  his  far-off  home,  and 
he  resolves  to  return  thither,  ready  to  be  a  servant  in  his 
father’s  house  if  that  be  permitted  him.  But  his  father, 
gladdened  by  the  sight  of  his  long-lost  son,  receives  him  with 
great  rejoicing,  and  makes  a  feast  in  his  honor.  It  is  reasoned 
from  this  parable  that  our  Heavenly  Father  will  forever  be 


The  Question  of  Future  Punishment. 


165 


looking  out  for  the  return  of  His  wandering  children  from  all 
worlds,  ready  to  receive  them  with  open  arms.  Then  there  is 
the  22d  verse  of  the  15th  chapter  of  First  Corinthians  : 

For  as  in  Adam  all  (lie,  even  so  in  Christ  shall  all  be  made  alive. 

They  argue  from  this,  that,  whatever  may  be  the  death  in 
Adam,  there  is  set  over  against  it  the  life  all  have  in  Christ. 
There  are  also  the  9th  and  10th  verses  of  the  1st  chapter  of 
Ephesians : 

Having  made  known  unto  us  the  mystery  of  his  will,  according  to  his 
good  pleasure  which  he  hath  purposed  in  himself : 

That  in  the  dispensation  of  the  fulness  of  times  he  might  gather 
together  in  one  all  things  in  Christ,  both  which  are  in  heaven,  and 
which  are  on  earth  ;  even  in  him. 

Their  argument  is  that  the  purpose  of  God  is  to  gather  in 
Christ  all  things,  whether  in  heaven  or  on  earth.  I  will  also 
read  from  the  2d  chapter  of  Phillippians,  the  9th  and  10th 
verses  : 

Wherefore  God  also  hath  highly  exalted  him,  and  given  him  a  name 
which  is  above  every  name  : 

That  at  the  name  of  Jesus  every  knee  should  bow,  of  things  in 
heaven,  and  things  in  earth,  and  things  under  the  earth. 

And  from  the  1st  chapter  of  Colossians,  the  19th  and  20th 
verses : 

For  it  pleased  the  Father  that  in  him  should  all  fulness  dwell : 

And,  having  made  peace  through  the  blood  of  his  cross,  by  him  to 
reconcile  all  things  unto  himself ;  by  him,  I  say,  whether  they  be  things 
in  earth  or  things  in  heaven. 

I  have  thus  given  you  some  of  the  Scriptures  on  which  both 
parties  rest  their  arguments.  I  can,  of  course,  in  this  hour, 
give  only  by  suggestion  their  arguments.  The  next  doctrine 
I  would  call  your  attention  to  is  the  doctrine  of  annihilation. 
You  may  remember  that  in  our  discourse  on  the  intermediate 


166 


The  Origin  and  Destiny  of  Man. 


state  we  referred  to  the  teachings  of  those  who  claim  that, 
when  a  man  dies,  he  enters  a  state  of  unconsciousness.  This 
same  school  claims  tha':  in  the  resurrection  both  the  good  and 
the  bad  shall  be  raised,  and  that  after  judgment  the  good 
shall  go  into  happiness  and  the  wicked  into  annihilation. 
Their  argument  is  that  immortality  is  not  a  natural  necessity, 
and  that  if  a  soul  is  not  endowed  with  immortality  by  coming 
in  contact  with  perfect  goodness  in  the  person  of  Christ,  it 
passes  into  non-existence.  I  confess  to  you,  my  friends,  there 
is  not  a  little  that  seems  to  favor  this  doctrine.  Probably 
none  of  us  believe  in  the  necessary  immortality  of  the  soul. 
Probably  all  of  us  believe  that  immortality  is  conferred  by  the 
will  and  purpose  of  God  ;  and  if  souls  are  held  in  being  by 
the  purpose  of  God,  if  probation  prove  a  failure,  there  being 
no  hope  of  ultimate  reformation,  it  does  not  seem  unreasonable 
that  they  may  be  permitted  to  drop  into  non-existence.  I 
say,  from  the  standpoint  of  reason,  there  is  not  a  little  to 
favor  this  theory. 

Then  there  is  the  doctrine  of  the  New  or  Swedenborgian 
Church,  which  teaches  that,  as  we  pass  through  this  life,  we 
develop  what  is  termed  a  preponderance  of  character  for  good 
or  evil,  and  that  this  character  becomes  our  life.  This  char¬ 
acter  may  not  reveal  itself  fully  and  clearly  before  the  world. 
A  man  may  seem  to  be  good  in  the  eyes  of  his  fellows,  and 
yet  away  down  in  the  depths  of  his  soul  he  may  not  be  a  good 
man.  Or  his  character  may  carry  many  outward  signs  of  evil, 
and  yet  he  may  have  every  wish  to  do  right.  Swedenborg 
teaches  that  what  we  want  to  be  is  what  we  will  be.  If  a  man 
wants  to  be  good,  his  nature  will  gradually  and  surely  be 


The  Question  of  Future  Punishment.  167 

brought  to  goodness.  If  the  germ  of  his  being  be  evil,  when 
he  dies  he  is  the  thing  he  wants  to  be.  Swedenborg  claims 
that  you  cannot  change  this  tendency  after  death  without 
annihilating  the  being,  this  love,  whether  it  be  of  good  or 
evil,  being  the  life.  He  teaches  that,  while  there  is  endless 
suffering,  it  is  not  of  that  unmitigated  character  that  is 
usually  supposed.  He  makes  the  hell  of  the  wicked  the  best 
condition  that  is  possible  for  them.  His  thought  is,  they  will 
be  cared  for  much  after  the  manner  that  our  governments 
here  find  it  necessary  to  look  after  convicted  criminals.  While 
•we  shut  them  up  in  prison,  we  make  their  condition  in  con¬ 
finement  as  tolerable  as  may  be  under  the  circumstances.  So 
he  claims  that  the  future  condition  of  the  wicked  is  not  one 
cf  unmitigated  suffering.  It  is  the  best  that  God  can  do  for 
them.  But  as  the  very  germ  of  their  being  is  evil  in  its 
essence,  their  life  is  fixed  forever  on  that  plane. 

Then  there  is  the  theory  of  Dr.  Bushnell,  in  whom  I  have 
great  confidence  as  a  clear  thinker  and  sincere  man,  and  yet 
I  think  his  teaching  on  this  point  is  very  strange.  He  holds 
to  the  doctrine  of  endless  punishment,  but  on  a  diminishing 
or  descending  scale.  Say  that  the  agony  of  the  soul  may  now 
be  ten — in  the  next  generation  it  descends  to  nine,  in  the  next 
to  eight,  and  thus  gradually  drops  down  to  zero,  or  to  the 
point  of  unconsciousness.  In  a  word,  his  thought  is  that  the 
wicked  will  finally  become  as  burned-out  cinders — startling 
monuments  of  the  consequences  of  sin.  They  are  to  be  held 
in  being,  yet  at  a  point  of  consciousness  so  low  as  to  be 
scarcely  wrorthy  to  be  called  life  or  conscious  of  their  misery. 

Others  hold  to  the  doctrine  of  endless  punishment  in  this 


168 


The  Origin  and  Denting  of  Mon. 


light:  that  it  is  a  dark  background  of  misery,  into  which  free 
beings  may  be  forever  plunging,  and  from  which  they  may  be 
forever  emerging,  and  there  will  be  endless  misery,  but  not 
for  the  same  souls.  Souls  may  plunge  into  this  dark  back¬ 
ground,  and  they  may  emerge  out  of  it.  Then  there  is  the 
theory  that  endless  suffering  will  be  the  feeling  of  endless  loss 
that  all  will  experience  who  have  wasted  opportunities  of 
serving  God,  who  have  buried  the  talents  confided  to  them. 
There  will  be  never-ending  regret  in  the  thought  that  they 
cannot  be  in  the  life  eternal  what  they  would  have  been  had 
they  improved  these  wasted  opportunities. 

Turning  from  the  various  theories  that  have  obtained  on 
this  subject,  you  may  now  want  me  to  tell  you  my  own  views, 
and  I  have  no  reserve  in  expressing  them.  In  the  first  place, 
I  believe  in  the  eternal  and  immutable  distinctions  between 
right  and  wrong.  I  l  elieve  in  the  everlasting  principles  of 
right.  In  the  second  place,  I  believe  that  the  laws  of  God 
are  unchangeable,  and  that  the  laws  of  God  in  this  world  and 
in  all  worlds  are  the  same  ;  that  the  same  laws  that  abide  here 
will  abide  yonder,  now  and  forever  ;  that  what  is  right  in  this 
world  is  right  yonder,  and  what  is  wrong  here  is  wrong  there. 
I  believe,  further,  that  there  is  what  in  moral  philosophy  is 
called  the  law  of  sequences,  that  certain  results  follow  certain 
courses  of  conduct  ;  if  a  certain  act  be  performed,  a  certain 
result  will  follow — it  may  be  immediately  or  it  may  be  long 
delayed  ;  and  that  the  laws  of  sequence  are  as  immutable  and 
as  certain  as  the  law  of  gravity  or  any  law  of  chemistry  or  of 
the  natural  world.  Believing  these  things,  it  seems  to  me 
that  both  heaven  and  hell  begin  in  this  world.  Men  begin 


The  Question  of  Future  Punishment.  169 

the  formation  of  character  in  this  life.  They  array  themselves 
on  the  one  side  or  the  other  of  these  great  principles  ;  they 
become,  as  it  were,  parts  of  right  or  parts  of  wrong  ;  they 
have  characters  which  assimilate  to  the  right  or  to  the  w?rong, 
according  to  the  nature  of  their  desires  and  associations  :  and 
with  these  characters  men  are  passing  through  the  gates  that 
open  into  the  endless  beyond.  Believing  this,  I  have  not  a 
shadow  of  doubt  of  after-death  suffering  for  men  who  die 
in  sin.  The  opposite  of  this  would  be  to  me  illogical  and 
unreasonable. 

But  the  great  question  you  would  ask  is,  Will  this  punish¬ 
ment  be  eternal  ?  The  answer  depends  on  the  answer  to  two 
other  questions  :  First,  will  there  be,  after  death,  a  period  of 
probation  that  will  probably  eventuate  in  a  reformation  of 
character  ?  The  Scriptures  are  painfully  silent  on  this  subject 
of  an  after-death  probation.  "While  there  is  less  than  is  gen¬ 
erally  supposed  to  teach  that  there  will  not  be  a  future  proba¬ 
tion,  they  nowhere,  as  I  can  see,  affirm  that  there  will  be.  I 
would  not,  for  my  right  arm,  lead  any  soul  to  believe  there  is 
an  after-death  probation.  I  do  not  know  the  fact.  Nor  am 
I  able  to  affirm  certainly  that  there  may  not  be.  I  do  not 
know  what  changes  may  be  effected  as  the  soul  journeys  on. 
I  can  only  say,  while  there  is  nothing  that  would  positively 
encourage  the  thought  of  a  probation  beyond  the  grave,  there 
is  nothing  which  positively  forbids  the  thought.  After  years 
of  study,  and  an  agony  on  this  subject,  that  none  but  myself 
can  understand,  I  can  only  say,  I  don’t  know  ;  and  I  am  very 
certain  that  no  one  else  knows.  Nor  is  it  essential  that  we  do 
know,  or  even  believe  in  endless  punishment  in  order  to  be 


170  The  Origin  and  Destiny  of  Man. 

Christians.  It  is  a  risk  I  ask  no  soul  to  take.  The  other 
question  is  :  If  there  be  a  probation,  will  it  certainly  eventu¬ 
ate  in  the  reformation  of  character  ?  If  it  will,  then  the  doc¬ 
trine  of  Universalism  will  be  true.  But  holding,  as  I  do,  to 
the  doctrine  of  the  freedom  of  the  human  soul,  I  cannot  cer¬ 
tainly  predict  the  turning  around  of  a  free  being.  I  cannot 
say  with  certainty  that  some  time  it  will  turn  from  the  wrong 
and  do  the  right.  We  hear  people  say  :  “Oh,  if  I  could  have 
another  trial,  I  would  live  differently;’’  or,  “If  I  could  live 
my  life  over  again,  I  would  live  abetter  life.”  You  do  not 
know  the  fact.  If  there  be  another  trial,  and  another  and  an¬ 
other,  each  trial  must  begin  where  the  other  left  off.  If  there 
be  a  trial  after  death,  that  trial  must  begin  where  the  other 
ends ;  and  if  the  life  lived  here  have  sent  its  roots  down  into 
lust,  or  if  it  have  perverted  its  powers  of  truth  and  justice,  it 
must  begin  the  next  world  just  as  it  leaves  this.  So  that  I 
cannot  say,  if  there  be  a  probation,  that  it  will  certainly  mean 
reformation  ;  nor  can  I  say  that  it  will  not  be  a  reformation. 
Admitting  the  doctrine  of  the  soul’s  freedom,  I  do  not  see 
how  any  man  can  form  an  opinion  as  to  what  will  certainly  be 
the  result.  Of  this  I  am  certain — that  so  long  as  there  is  sin¬ 
ning,  so  long  there  will  be  suffering.  If  men  die  in  sin,  they 
will  suffer  after  death.  If  men  sin  in  the  future,  they  will 
suffer  in  the  future.  There  can  be  no  heaven  without  purity. 

As  to  the  nature  of  future  punishment,  I  do  not  and  cannot 
believe  in  a  literal  lake  of  fire,  into  which  human  souls  are 
plunged  to  burn  forever.  I  do  not  and  cannot  believe  in  the 
terrible  ideas  of  hell  that  have  come  down  to  us  from  the 
sensuous  past,  such  as  the  representations  of  Dante,  Mil- 


The  Question  of  Future  Punishment.  171 

ton,  Pollock  and  Allien’s  Alarm.  Sucli  severe  literalism,  such 
awful  pictures  of  torment,  are  enough  to  negate  the  idea 
of  God.  That  a  God  of  love  could  so  torment  His  lost  chil¬ 
dren,  or  any  sentient  beings,  is  absolutely  unthinkable.  Nor 
can  I  believe  in  a  punishment  that  is  wrathful  or  vindictive. 
I  must  forever  stand  by  the  thought  of  the  Eternal  Goodness. 
To  me  it  seems  that  it  is  more  a  suffering  than  a  punishment 
that  comes  upon  lost  souls — a  suffering  of  the  consequences 
of  wrong-doiug,  and  of  the  deep  sense  of  loss  of  what  they 
might  have  been,  but  are  not.  And  then  there  may  be  the 
raging  of  angry  passions,  and  the  fire  of  human  lusts,  and  the 
dark  companionships  of  evil  spirits.  Such  a  hell  we  can  read¬ 
ily  conceive ;  men  carry  it  out  of  this  world  with  them,  and 
in  some  such  suffering  mankind  can  easily  enough  believe. 
But  there  is  evidently  a  very  general  turning  away  of  the 
public  mind  from  the  cruel  ideas  that  have  come  down  to  ns 
from  the  darkness  of  the  past.  To  preach  such  a  hell  now 
is  either  to  disgust  sensible  men  with  the  idea  of  religion,  or 
drive  them  into  infidelity.  While  God  reigns  and  the  love 
of  justice  lives  in  human  breasts,  there  must  be  some  respect 
to  what  is  reasonable  and  right,  even  in  our  ideas  of  hell.  But 
the  reaction  from  the  old  view  is  likely  to  carry  us  too  far  in 
the  opposite  direction.  We  are  in  danger  of  losing  the  strength 
and  character  that  can  come  only  from  a  proper  conception  of 
law  and  justice  and  reward  and  penalty,  and  lapsing  into  a 
weak  and  irresponsible  sentimentalism.  The  ideas  of  law 
and  penalty  cannot,  with  safety  either  to  the  individual  or  to 
society,  be  let  go  in  any  world.  They  are  founded  in  fact, 
and  must  be  held  fast  in  theory.  In  parting  from  the  old  and 


172  The  Origin  and  Destiny  of  Man. 

over-statements  concerning  future  punishment,  we  are  in  dan¬ 
ger  of  losing  sight  of  the  truth  that  still  remains.  The  real 
hell  of  the  Bible  is  certainly  as  much  a  fact  now,  and  as  much 
to  be  feared  now,  as  ever,  and  as  such  should  be  preached 
from  every  pulpit.  And  it  is  to  be  feared  that  not  a  few  min¬ 
isters,  feeling  unable  in  a  good  conscience  to  state  the  doc¬ 
trine  in  the  old  way,  and  dreading  to  encounter  the  criticism 
and  the  cry  of  “heresy”  that  would  come  upon  them  if  they 
preached  a  modified  view,  say  nothing  at  all. 

I  have  detained  you  fully  as  long  as  I  ought  in  the  discus¬ 
sion  of  this  painful  subject.  Let  me  bid  you  look  to  a  higher 
and  different  ground  or  motive.  I  assure  you  that,  if  any  soul 
dreams  of  going  to  heaven  on  the  slender  hope  that  there 
may  be  a  trial  after  death,  and  on  that  hope  continues  the 
love  and  practice  of  sin,  that  soul  is  very  far  from  heaven. 
That  soul  has  got  to  reach  a  point  of  character  that  turns  from 
the  wrong  because  it  is  wrong,  that  leaves  the  wrong  and 
clings  to  the  right.  It  must  be  so  in  the  nature  of  things.  If 
you  would  be  sure  of  a  blessed  life  hereafter,  turn  in  this  life 
to  the  right.  Do  right  for  the  sake  of  right,  and  not  from 
the  low  motive  of  evading  punishment.  The  highest  type  of 
virtue  is  that  which  turns  away  from  wrong  with  aversion, 
and  cleaves  to  the  good  because  it  is  good.  There  is  darkness 
along  the  way  of  sin,  so  far  as  we  can  see,  here  and  hereafter. 
The  wisest  way  is  to  break  with  sin  in  this  world.  Unite 
yourselves  to  the  right  here,  and  enjoy  the  hope  of  endless 
life  in  the  regions  of  right  hereafter. 


XIII. 


THE  HEAVENLY  WORLD. 


In  my  father’s  house  are  many  mansions  :  if  it  were  not  so,  I  would 
have  told  you.  I  go  to  prepare  a  place  for  you. — St.  John,  xlv,  2. 

But  now  they  desire  a  better  country,  that  is,  a  heavenly  :  wherefore 
God  is  not  ashamed  to  be  called  their  God :  for  he  hath  prepared  for 
them  a  city. — Hebrews,  xi,  16. 

And  God  shall  wipe  away  all  tears  from  their  eyes ;  and  there  shall  be 
no  more  death,  neither  sorrow,  nor  crying,  neither  shall  there  be  any 
more  pain  :  for  the  former  things  are  passed  away. — Revelation, 
xxi,  4. 

THUS,  my  friends,  from  the  light  that  comes  from  this 
word  of  God  do  we  catch  glimpses  of  the  world  and  the 
glory  beyond.  I  say  glimpses,  for  I  think  it  is  not  given 
to  any  of  us  to  discern  with  clearness  the  outlines  even,  much 
less  with  fullness  of  detail,  all  that  may  await  us  in  the  after¬ 
life.  It  is  not  strange,  indeed,  that  there  is  a  vagueness  in 
our  conception  of  the  future  life  and  world.  This  arises 
partly  from  the  fact  that  in  this  life  we  are  so  limited  as  to 
time.  We  remain  here  but  sixty  or  eighty  years  at  most,  and 
during  that  brief  period  we  are  narrowly  conditioned  as  to 
space  and  as  to  the  working  of  our  imperfect  senses.  We 
dwell  here  upon  the  ground,  pressed  down  by  a  heavy  ocean 
of  atmosphere.  We  see  but  little  ;  we  hear  but  imperfectly  ; 


174 


The  Origin  and  Destiny  of  Man. 


our  feelings  are  blunt ;  our  perceptions  are  not  clear.  So  it  is 
not  strange  that  when  we  attempt  to  look  into  that  which  is 
beyond  it  is  vague  to  many  of  us.  This  comes  again,  I  think, 
from  what  I  might  call  the  improper  method  of  looking  at 
the  life  to  come.  The  habit  of  many  in  considering  the  ques¬ 
tion  of  the  other  life,  is  to  wholly  let  go  of  this  world  and  this 
life,  and  then  to  try  to  project  themselves  some  how  into  the 
future,  and  to  build  around  them  the  conditions  of  another 
state  of  being ;  and  it  is  often  the  case  that  in  letting  go  of 
this  life,  we  fail  to  grasp  the  life  and  the  world  beyond.  A 
more  natural  and  rational  way  of  trying  to  pass  over  in 
thought  the  bridge-way  between  the  two  states  of  being  is 
not  to  let  go  of  this  life  nor  of  this  world,  but  to  think  of  this 
life  as  living  on,  of  the  world  as  enduring,  and  of  the  soul  as 
passing  right  on  through  what  we  call  death  without  any 
break  in  its  journey.  My  object  in  this  discourse  will  be, 
partly,  to  try  to  make  the  future  world  and  the  heavenly  life 
seem  real  to  us,  and  partly  to  suggest  by  outline  the  possible 
and  more  probable  conditions  of  that  world  and  that  life, 
leaving  each  one  to  construct  his  own  heaven  out  of  these 
conditions. 

In  order  that  we  may  make  the  heavenly  world  seem  real, 
we  pursue  the  scriptural  line  of  thought,  thinking  of  it  as  a 
real  place,  a  material  condition  ;  or,  in  the  words  of  our 
texts,  considering  it  under  the  thought  of  a  country,  of  many 
mansions,  of  a  city.  There  should  be  more  about  these 
thoughts  than  mere  words  ;  they  should  have  a  definite  mean¬ 
ing.  There  should  be  something  in  the  thought  of  a  country 
that  corresponds  to  the  meaning  that  we  give  to  the  word  in 


The  Heavenly  World. 


175 


this  life ;  something  in  the  thought  of  mansions  that  corres¬ 
ponds  to  the  thought  of  mansions  here ;  something  in  the 
thought  of  a  city  that  may  correspond  to  the  idea  of  a  city 
here.  The  Scriptures  speak  of  the  heavenly  world  not  only 
as  a  country,  as  a  city,  as  a  place,  but  they  speak  of  it  as 
something  far  better  than  anything  we  have  in  these  con¬ 
ditions  here.  The  Scriptures  take  the  best  things  of  the 
earth,  as  the  land  of  Canaan,  the  city  of  Zion,  the  most  valu¬ 
able  minerals,  the  most  precious  stones  —  they  take  all  the 
best  things  of  this  world,  and  then  lead  us  to  think  there  is 
something  better  still  in  the  future.  Now  in  thinking  of  our 
world,  we  shall  be  mistaken  if  we  suppose  that  the  highest 
possible  degree  of  perfection  as  a  world  is  here  attained. 
Indeed,  this  world,  so  far  as  relates  to  its  physical  appoint¬ 
ments,  is  a  very  imperfect  world.  It  has  passed  through 
periods  of  still  greater  imperfection,  and  it  still  falls  far 
beneath  the  thought  of  what  a  perfect  God  may  do  to  say 
this  is  the  most  perfect  world  that  souls  shall  ever  dwell 
upon.  There  have  been  periods  in  our  earth’s  history  when 
it  existed  simply  as  a  fiery  ball.  There  was  a  time  when  it 
rolled  on  in  darkness.  There  was  a  time  when  it  was  cov¬ 
ered  with  water ;  a  time  when  its  continents  were  not  lifted 
up,  when  the  greater  portions  of  the  earth’s  surface  were  but 
marshes ;  when  there  was  no  dry  land,  no  hard  wood,  no 
flowering  plant,  no  fruiting  tree.  Had  some  one  lived  upon 
the  earth  at  that  time,  he  might  even  then  have  thought  it  a 
fair  world.  But  the  earth  traveled  steadily  on  along  the  line 
of  development,  progressing  onward  toward  perfection,  and 
we  are  not  at  all  warranted  in  thinking  that  there  is  not  to  be 


176  The  Origin  and  Desting  of  Man. 

a  more  perfect  condition  of  this  earth,  or  more  perfect  worlds 
beyond  this.  Nature,  in  its  wonderful  processes,  takes  the 
dullest  and  most  imperfect  things,  and  builds  out  of  them  the 
finest  and  most  precious.  The  diamond  is  produced  out  of 
common  carbon  ;  the  polished  marble  is  but  an  outgrowth  of 
the  rough  limestone.  Thus  our  world  seems  to  be  traveling 
along  its  appointed  way  towards  a  perfection  it  has  not  yet 
reached.  There  are  worlds  outside  of  this,  that  mav  be  far 
more  perfect  than  this.  Our  poor  earth  journeys  on  with  but 
one  moon  as  an  attendant,  and  that  is  shown  to  us  only  half 
of  each  month.  We  know  that  Jupiter  has  four  moons,  and 
that  Saturn  has  eight,  and  we  can  easily  conceive  that  on  the 
plains  of  those  far-off  planets  there  is  a  beauty  in  the  night¬ 
time  of  which  we  have  no  knowledge  here.  We  know  not 
what  may  be  the  physical  perfection  of  some  of  the  worlds 
in  God’s  universe.  We  know  not  but  that  the  fairest  flowers 
that  bloom  here  are  only  types  of  the  flowers  that  bloom  else¬ 
where  ;  that  the  most  beautiful  rivers,  the  fairest  landscapes, 
the  loftiest  mountains,  the  greatest  oceans,  are  but  the  begin¬ 
nings  of  what  shall  be  in  God’s  material  universe. 

The  Scriptures  not  only  warrant  us  in  the  thought  that 
there  is  to  be  a  material  heaven,  but  they  speak  of  it  under 
the  thought  of  many  mansions.  A  theory  held  by  many  is 
that  it  is  to  be  this  earth  redeemed  and  purified.  Another 
theory,  advanced  by  Dr.  Dick,  is  that,  as  our  sun  is  five  hun¬ 
dred  times  larger  than  all  its  planets,  so  all  the  stars  in  the 
heavens  may  possibly  have  a  common  centre,  about  which  all 
revolve,  and  which  is  proportionately  greater  than  all  of  them 
together.  This  great  central  world  he  denominates  the  throne 


The  Heavenly  World. 


177 


of  God,  the  capital  of  the  universe.  Astronomers  now  look 
to  the  beautiful  star  Alcyone,  in  the  Pleiades,  as  this  possible 
centre  of  the  entire  universe.  It  seems  to  me  that,  under  the 
thought  of  many  mansions,  the  most  reasonable  conception 
of  the  future  world  would  be  that  it  is  not  only  this  earth 
renewed  and  made  more  perfect ;  that  it  is  not  only  the 
planets  of  the  solar  system,  and  the  stars  that  deck  the  sky ; 
not  only  this,  but  the  vast  universe  of  material  worlds  —  sys¬ 
tems  rising  above  systems,  worlds  ranging  beyond  worlds,  till 
the  whole  universe  is  spanned.  This  is  what  I  think  is  meant 
by  the  language  of  Scripture,  that  ‘‘in  God’s  house  are  many 
mansions.”  The  whole  universe  is  God’s  house,  and  its 
many  worlds  are  its  many  mansions. 

Let  us  now  take  up,  as  another  thought,  ourselves,  and  see 
what  we  may  possibly  be  in  relation  to  the  future  world  and 
to  each  other.  According  to  the  theories  that  I  have  been 
advancing  in  these  discourses,  we  look  upon  death  as  some¬ 
thing  that  severs  our  relations  with  material  things,  but  we 
expect  these  bodies  to  be  in  some  way  or  in  some  sense 
restored  to  us  in  the  resurrection.  So  it  is  competent  for  us 
to  think  of  ourselves  in  the  heavenly  world  as  having  bodies 
corresponding  to  our  bodies  here ;  bodies  that  will  bring  us 
into  relation  with  material  things  by  the  senses  —  by  touch 
and  sight  and  hearing.  In  this  thought  our  life  in  the  heav¬ 
enly  world  will  not  be  a  sublimated  experience,  abstracted 
from  the  material  universe ;  but  in  the  development  and 
exaltation  of  the  senses  we  may  have  conceptions  of  beauty 
and  perfection  in  the  heavenly  material  world  of  which  we 

do  not  now  dream.  It  is  reasonable  to  suppose  that  our 
12 


178 


The  Origin  and  Destiny  of  Man. 


bodies  will  enjoy  many  blessings  in  the  future  state  that  we 
have  not  here.  These  will  come  in  their  more  perfect  devel¬ 
opment.  Take  the  power  of  sight.  Very  remarkable  indeed 
is  it  that  an  instrument  so  small  as  the  human  eye  can  take  in 
so  broad  an  expanse  of  landscape  and  sky.  Yet,  wonderful 
as  is  its  power,  the  eye  is  imperfect.  It  is  limited  as  an  organ, 
and  the  obstructions  which  it  encounters  limit  the  range  of 
vision.  The  heaviness  of  the  atmosphere  and  the  lowness 
of  our  position  are  among  the  impediments  to  perfect  sight. 
It  is  possible  that  the  eye  will  be  made  so  perfect  that  not 
only  shall  we  be  able  to  see  with  ease,  but  the  power  of  vision 
may  be  so  augmented  and  exalted  that  we  may  be  able  to  see 
with  clearness  for  miles,  and  even  hundreds  of  miles,  possibly 
from  world  to  world.  This  will  not  seem  impossible  when  we 
think  that  the  telescope  has  brought  the  moon  within  two 
hundred  miles  of  our  earth,  and  that  by  the  microscope  there 
has  been  revealed  to  us  a  world  of  beauty  undreamed  of 
before — the  beauty  in  the  speck  of  dust  and  in  the  insect,  that 
the  natural  eye  cannot  see.  In  metaphysics  there  is  discussed 
what  is  called  the  minimum  visihila ,  the  point  where  we 
begin  to  see.  But  the  microscope  has  taught  us  that  there  is 
a  point  below  that,  and  a  point  below  that,  and  a  point  below 
that.  It  is  probable  that  God  has  made  no  beauty  in  the 
gem  or  in  the  flower  that  he  will  not  some  time  reveal  to  the 
perfected  human  eye.  Take  the  sense  of  hearing.  There  is 
also  in  metaphysics  what  is  called  the  minimum  audibilay  the 
point  where  we  begin  to  hear.  Then  there  is  the  point  where 
the  volume  of  sound  overpowers  the  sense  of  hearing,  as  when 
we  listen  to  the  roar  of  Niagara.  Huxley  tells  us  that,  had 


The  Heavenly  World. 


179 


we  an  ear  fine  enough,  we  might  catch  the  sweet  music  of  the 
rippling  rill  that  comes  from  the  circulation  of  the  sap  in  the 
thorn  and  the  thistle,  and  the  sweet  music  that  murmurs  in 
the  flowers  and  sings  in  the  leaves.  Man  may  yet  have  an 
ear  that  will  take  them  all  in. 

There  may  be  in  this  physical  perfection  not  only  an  im¬ 
proved  power  of  sight  and  hearing  to  go  along  with  the  per¬ 
fect  physical  universe,  but  there  may  also  be  a  perfection  of 
beauty.  God’s  highest  thought  of  the  beautiful  seems  to 
ultimate  in  man,  yet  man  is  ever  reaching  forward  to  new 
ideals  of  beauty,  and  only  in  the  other  world  is  it  probable 
that  this  yearning  for  the  beautiful  will  be  satisfied.  Along 
with  this  there  will  doubtless  be  a  sense  of  life,  a  sense  of 
enduring  strength,  a  sense  of  the  satisfaction  that  comes  from 
the  harmonious  action  of  all  the  functions  of  life.  You  may 
search  the  world  over,  and  you  will  not  find  one  in  ten  thou¬ 
sand  who  does  not  carry  some  scar,  some  blemish,  some 
weakness.  Yet  there  are  times  when  we  seem  to  revel  in 
perfect  health.  It  sparkles  in  the  eye  and  glows  upon  the 
cheek,  and  we  feel  that  life  is  in  itself  a  blessing.  I  have  no 
doubt  that  God  intends  to  give  us  bodies  in  which  these  feel¬ 
ings  of  perfect  health  and  strength  will  endure  forever. 
Possibly  these  bodies  will  have  power  to  transport  them¬ 
selves  from  place  to  place.  In  the  narrowed  conditions  of 
this  life,  how  slowly  we  walk,  with  what  difficulty  we  rise. 
We  have  brought  the  vessel  and  the  car  to  our  help,  and  yet 
how  difficult  it  is  for  us  to  travel.  The  Scriptures  abound  in 
instances  of  the  ability  of  heavenly  beings  to  transport  them¬ 
selves  from  place  to  place,  from  world  to  world;  and  it  is 


180  The  Origin  and  Destiny  of  Man. 

possible  that  when  the  human  body  exists  in  the  highest  per¬ 
fection,  it  will  be  no  longer  weighed  down  by  gravity  to  the 
surface  of  this  little  star,  but  will  have  the  power  of  rising 
to  worlds  of  surpassing  beauty  and  magnificent  proportions, 
worlds  whose  mountains  are  larger  than  our  earth,  whose 
lakes  would  swallow  up  our  oceans,  whose  rivers  are  like  the 
confluence  of  all  earth’s  streams.  Take  this  body  and  make  it 
perfect,  give  that  body  an  eternity  amid  such  scenes  of  mag¬ 
nificence  and  beauty,  and  you  have  some  of  the  conditions  of 
the  future  life. 

Then,  again,  according  to  the  theories  upon  which  we  have 
been  going,  we  shall  have  with  us  in  the  life  to  come  our 
minds.  We  shall  carry  with  us  the  power  of  learning,  the 
power  of  remembering,  the  power  of  reason.  The  Scriptures 
seem  to  make  a  point  of  the  difference  between  the  knowledge 
that  is  here  and  the  knowledge  that  is  hereafter,  in  this,  that 
now  we  know  but  a  part,  then  shall  we  know  as  we  are  known; 
here  we  see  through  a  glass  darkly,  there  we  shall  see  face  to 
face.  The  Greek  of  this  work  “darkly”  is  en  ainigmati  — 
that  is,  in  a  riddle,  in  an  enigma.  We  seem  to  see  things 
now,  not  as  they  really  are,  but  only  by  a  reflection  and  by  a 
correspondence.  And  we  read  the  language  of  correspond¬ 
ence  but  imperfectly.  Possibly,  could  we  see  the  likeness 
or  correspondence  of  all  things  in  earth  and  air  and  sky,  in 
mountain  and  plain,  in  running  streams  and  living  trees,  in 
day  and  night,  in  cloud,  in  storm,  in  calm,  to  something 
within  ourselves,  we  should  see  all  the  phases  and  varied 
moods  of  human  minds  and  hearts,  reflected  back  from  this 
vast  and  changeful  outer  world.  Into  some  such  vision  does 


The  Heavenly  World. 


181 


the  poet  come  in  his  charmed  hours,  and  then  gives  us  a 
glimpse,  a  faint  sound,  or  echo,  of  all  the  beauty  and  senti¬ 
ment  and  truth  that  seek  to  reach  us  from  what  we  thought 
the  dumb  world  about  us.  Take  the  first  feeble  steps  of 
childhood  in  knowledge  ;  take  the  advance  in  knowledge  with 
youthhood,  and  the  greater  attainments  of  mature  manhood. 
How  little  do  we  know,  and  how  imperfectly  do  we  know  it ! 
Newton  said  that  we  travel  along  the  shores  of  knowledge, 
picking  up  a  few  pebbles  here  and  there,  but  the  vast  ocean 
beyond  is  all  unknown.  Take  this  thought  of  the  human 
mind  in  the  future.  Possibly  God  will  clothe  it  with  a  more 
direct  perception  of  truth  than  is  here  possible.  Here  we 
see  but  “  darkly.”  Take  it  in  the  truths  that  we  try  to  bring 
before  our  minds.  How  often  do  we  ponder  over  them  in 
deep  study,  seeming  to  get  them,  and  yet  not  to  get  them. 
How  often  do  we  hang  over  problems,  and  only  after  days 
and  weeks  of  looking  can  we  say,  “Now  I  see  it.”  Not  only 
this,  but  there  is  the  difficulty  and  slowness  with  which  the 
mind  works  through  the  senses,  getting  the  real  beauty  and 
charm  of  a  scene  only  after  much  looking.  Take  a  beautiful 
picture,  a  fair  landscape,  or  lofty  mountains  ;  you  cannot  sat¬ 
isfy  yourself  with  once  looking.  It  is  only  gradually  and 
slowly  that  we  become  possessed  of  all  the  beauty  in  the  face 
on  the  canvas,  of  all  the  charm  in  the  landscape.  Take  the 
sweetest  tones  of  the  organ  ;  the  music  steals  over  the  mind, 
and  we  want  to  hold  it,  but  how  futile  is  the  effort.  We  get 
to  a  point  where  music  ravishes  the  soul,  then  leaves  us  noth¬ 
ing  but  its  memory.  I  love  to  think  that  these  dull  ears  will 
after  a  while  take  in  and  hold  a  world  of  song  beyond  what  vve 


182 


The  Origin  and  Destiny  of  Man. 


dream  of  now  ;  that  these  dull  eyes  will  see  nothing  darkly  or 
imperfectly,  but  that  the  mind  will  see  truth,  see  beauty — that 
it  will  grasp  it  as  a  fact,  carry  it  as  a  fact,  wear  it  as  a  gar¬ 
ment,  live  upon  it  as  a  tree  of  life. 

Then,  again,  we  may  make  some  calculation  of  what  the 
mind  will  be  in  the  future — the  mind  that  begins  here  with  its 
a,  b,  c,  its  1,  2,  3 ;  the  mind  that  begins  in  the  primer  and 
goes  to  the  reader  ;  that  starts  in  the  garden,  the  meadow  and 
the  field,  and  goes  out  to  the  continent ;  that  begins  with  its 
home,  its  county  and  state,  and  expands  to  the  history  of  our 
material  earth  ;  that  begins  to  reason  by  adding  its  eight  or 
ten  figures,  and  grasps  the  combinations  that  enable  it  to 
travel  out  into  space,  weigh  worlds  and  calculate  their  orbits. 
Give  that  mind  five  hundred  years,  with  a  body  that  knows 
no  weakness,  no  weariness,  no  dying.  Give  it  a  thousand 
years,  give  it  a  million,  a  billion,  a  trillion  years — give  it  eter¬ 
nity,  and  what  may  this  mind  of  man  be  !  Take  the  power 
of  memory.  We  value  memory  here  because  it  saves  the  past 
to  us.  Without  it  we  should  have  to  begin  a  new  life  every 
day.  We  could  carry  with  us  no  experience,  no  lesson,  no 
truth.  Each  day  we  should  have  to  begin  anew.  By  memory 
we  hold  to-day  what  we  learned  yesterday.  By  memory,  as 
we  journey  out  of  sweet  childood,  we  do  not  forget  the  cradle, 
the  yard,  the  orchard,  the  home.  Think  of  the  preciousness 
of  memory.  I  would  not  for  anything  you  can  imagine  lose 
the  recollections  of  the  scenes  where  I  played  when  a  boy, 
the  experiences  of  innocent  childhood,  the  days  when  the 
family  group  gathered  with  father  and  mother  by  the  old 
fire-place  in  the  sunny  South — days  gone  now  and  forever,  but 


The  Henveul y  World. 


183 


living  in  memory.  As  we  grow  older,  memory  becomes  dearer 
because  the  yesterday  gets  longer  ;  it  becomes  more  and  more 
our  life.  Look  at  the  grandmother  sitting  on  the  porch, 
knitting,  knitting  away,  but  her  mind  is  unraveling  the  long 
past.  Now,  if  memory  serve  to  keep  up  the  past  here,  and 
if,  as  I  have  argued,  it  is  probable  that  nothing  will  be  for¬ 
gotten,  -what  is  memory  to  be  in  the  everlasting  years  ?  If 
the  memory  of  eighty  years  is  worth  so  much,  what  will  the 
memory  be  that  preserves  our  life  and  thoughts,  our  joys  and 
loves,  in  the  future  state  ?  When  the  cycles  of  the  everlasting 
days  shall  have  come  and  gone,  when  its  suns  shall  have  risen 
and  set,  still  memory  brings  up  the  past.  The  heavenly 
world  will  include  this. 

Take  our  heart-life,  that  which  apprehends  God,  that 
which  apprehends  goodness,  and  take  the  voluntary  element 
of  our  being  ;  and  if  you  would  enter  into  the  thought  of 
what  the  heavenly  world  will  be,  you  must  remember  the 
method  which  God  has  selected  to  develop  human  life.  He 
has  come  forth  to  us  in  instituted  government,  a  government 
that  works  upon  the  heart  of  man.  He  has  not  only  built 
around  man  a  moral  scaffolding,  but  He  seeks  in  this  life  to 
write  His  laws  on  the  tables  of  the  human  heart,  as  He  wrote 
them  for  Moses  on  tables  of  stone.  Bv  the  law  of  vicarious- 

ti 

ness  and  atonement,  He  touches  the  centre  of  our  being.  He 
makes  us  at  one  with  Himself,  at  one  with  truth,  at  one  with 
goodness,  and  so  carrying  us  into  the  realm  of  goodness  that, 
being  true  here,  He  knows  we  will  be  true  up  yonder  ;  purity 
being  man’s  life  here,  purity  will  bo  his  life  forever.  For  it 
is  written  in  the  Scriptures  that  nothing  that  defileth  can 


184 


The  Origin  and  Destiny  of  J fan. 


enter  into  the  kingdom  of  God.  Another  thought  :  If  the 
soul  find  such  sweet  satisfaction  here  in  passing  from  under 
the  law  of  commandment  to  the  law  of  love,  what  will  be  its 
joy  in  that  liberty  wliich  the  law  of  love  imparts  in  that  state 
where  men  do  the  right  for  the  love  of  right,  where  men  love 
each  other,  love  God,  love  the  true,  the  beautiful  and  the 
good,  and  where  no  fear  of  harm,  no  alarm  of  danger,  shall 
ever  disturb  its  peaceful  rest. 

We  shall  have,  too,  our  friendships — the  friendships  that 
begin  in  childhood,  grow  strong  with  our  manhood,  and  ripen 
in  old  age.  Then,  too,  there,  are  the  loves  of  life  ;  loves  that 
watched  over  and  cared  for  the  blossom  of  infancv ;  loves  that 
have  been  shadowed  by  little  graves ;  loves  that  death  can 
never  conquer ;  loves,  too,  deep  and  tender,  that,  alas  !  often 
find  no  answering  love  here,  but  shall  meet  it  there.  I  think 
that  all  these  loves  are  to  be  carried  over  into  the  other  state. 
Then  take  the  social  conditions  of  the  heavenlv  world.  There 

*J 

is  a  passage  in  Revelation  that  speaks  of  the  kings  of  the 
earth  bringing  their  treasure  into  the  heavenly  state.  The 
idea  seems  to  be  that  God  will  gather  there  all  the  most  beau¬ 
tiful  things  of  this  life,  all  those  things  that  contribute  most 
to  man’s  happiness  here,  those  things  that  have  been  attained 
by  the  longest  study  and  the  hardest  work.  What  would  be 
our  social  life  were  sickness  and  death  no  more ;  what 
would  it  be  if  we  had  the  means  of  gathering  and  enjoying 
the  largest  libraries,  the  fairest  flowers,  the  richest  fruits  ;  if 
we  could  admire  the  works  of  the  great  masters  in  the  finest 
galleries,  listen  to  the  sweetest  voices  and  to  the  music  evoked 
by  the  most  skillful  fingers ;  if  we  could  hear  the  reasoning 


The  Reavenlu  World. 


185 


of  the  wisest  men,  and  learn  of  foreign  lands  from  travelers 
who  have  seen  the  most — with  these  powers  and  advantages, 
what  a  school  could  we  build  up  in  this  world!  But  think  that 
all  these  things  are  gathered  over  yonder.  Think  of  the  pure 
hearts  that  have  been  going  over  there  since  time  began  ;  the 
great  thinkers  from  Pythagoras  to  Hamilton  and  Haven  ;  the 
great  artists,  from  the  days  of  Ruebens  and  Raphael ;  the 
great  singers,  from  Mozart  to  Haydn  ;  the  sweet  voices  that 
sang  on  the  plains  of  Judea,  that  have  shouted  from  the  high¬ 
lands  of  Scotland,  and  warbled  in  the  melody  of  the  Parepa 
Rosas  ;  the  great  historians,  the  travelers,  the  philanthropists ; 
take  childhood  with  its  innocence,  take  the  love  of  father  and 
mother,  of  brother  and  sister,  take  the  affection  of  friend  for 
friend, — gather  them  all  over  there,  and  what  may  we  not 
hope  for  ? 

There  is  one  thing  more,  but  I  dare  not  talk  longer  —  the 
thought  of  eternity.  Anything  less  would  make  being  but  a 
mockery  to  man,  a  curse  instead  of  a  blessing  ;  for  I  honestly 
say  to  you  that  if  there  be  not  eternity,  in  which  these  souls 
can  expand  and  live  on,  better,  better  would  it  be  never  to  have 
been.  If  the  problem  were  put  to  me  to-night  to  die  now 
forever,  or  to  live  five  hundred  years  and  then  die  with  no 
hereafter,  I  would  say,  let  me  go  now.  If  there  be  no  eter¬ 
nity,  life  is  a  vain  mockery,  a  delusion  which  had  better  never 
have  been.  But  with  eternity,  with  bodies  stong  and  health¬ 
ful  forever,  with  every  sense  acute  and  trained,  with  minds 
open  to  knowledge  from  every  source,  and  hearts  free  to  the 
sweet  impulse  of  love  —  then  the  blessed  thought  of  time 
enough  will  be  with  us  forever.  You  do  not  know  how  much 


186 


The  Origin  and  Destiny  of  Man. 


meaning  there  is  to  me  in  that  thought.  How  many  things 
we  would  gladly  undertake,  but  we  have  not  time.  I  would 
like  to  travel,  but  I  haven’t  the  time.  I  would  like  to  sail, 
not  only  on  the  Hudson  but  on  the  Nile,  not  only  on  the  lakes 
of  our  own  country,  but  on  the  oceans  of  the  earth  ;  I  haven’t 
time.  I  would  like  to  study  the  musty  records  of  Egypt  and 
Babylon,  but  I  haven’t  time.  I  would  like  to  study  so  many 
things,  but  there  isn’t  time.  There  is  time  enough  over  there. 
I  would  like  to  give  a  few  hundred  years  to  botany,  and  win 
the  love  of  every  tree  and  flower  upon  the  earth.  I  would 
like  to  study  for  a  few  thousand  years  in  the  strange  and 
accurate  combinations  of  numbers.  I  would  like  to  read  his¬ 
tory,  beginning  back  in  the  far-off  past  when  the  hieroglyphs 
of  Egypt  were  written.  I  would  like  to  read  everything  that 
has  ever  been  written  or  spoken  by  the  great  thinkers  of 
earth.  I  would  like  to  give  thousands  of  years  to  music.  I 
would  like  to  make  the  acquaintance  of  ever  soul  in  this  city, 
in  this  state  and  in  this  vast  country.  I  haven’t  time.  But 
there  is  time  enough  there,  and  I  am  looking  for  the  day 
when  you  and  I  will  gather  on  the  other  shore,  no  longer 
feeling  that  it  is  12  o’clock  or  1  o’clock,  that  the  sun  is  sink¬ 
ing,  we  must  hurry  home.  "We  shall  not  feel  that  we  have 
only  a  few  more  years,  but  we  shall  wake  up  in  the  fair 
morning  of  eternity,  feeling  that  a  youth  of  endless  years  is 
ours.  Then  we  shall  begin  to  plan  and  work  forever ;  then 
we  shall  sit  down  by  the  rippling  stream  and  talk  till  the 
heart  is  satisfied  ;  wander  through  groves  of  stately  trees  and 
by  paths  strewn  with  flowers  ;  listen  to  sweet  voices  as  they 
may  come  to  sing  from  other  planets,  till  the  heart  is  satisfied. 


The  Heavenly  World. 


187 


Time  enough  for  every  study,  every  journey,  every  love. 
What  learning  man  may  gather  in  the  endless  beyond — what 
friendships  he  may  have — what  a  traveler  he  may  be — what  a 
singer,  what  a  reasoner,  what  a  philosopher,  may  the  years 
of  endless  experience  devolop.  0,  summerland  of  the  soul ! 
land  of  beauty,  land  of  flowers,  land  of  love !  Often  when 
the  soul  is  heavy  here,  when  the  shadow’s  are  deepening,  when 
the  grass  grows  above  the  graves  of  loved  ones,  do  we  think 
of  thy  far-off  shores,  and  glad  will  be  the  day  when  the  angels 
shall  open  the  gate  for  us  to  enter  in.  God  grant,  my  friends, 
that  this  hope  of  a  future  world  may  be  yours  and  mine. 
God  grant  that  we  may  listen  to  sweeter  music  than  wTe  have 
heard  here,  know  a  deeper  joy,  a  dearer  truth,  and  live  in  a 
holier  love  in  the  long  forever. 


XIV 


CLOSING  THOUGHTS. 


And  further,  by  these,  my  son,  be  admonished :  of  making  many 
books  there  is  no  end,  and  much  study  is  a  weariness  of  the  flesh.  Let 
us  hear  the  conclusion  of  the  whole  matter  :  Fear  God,  and  keep  his 
commandments  :  for  this  is  the  whole  duty  of  man.  For  God  shall  bring 
every  work  into  judgment,  with  every  secret  thing,  whether  it  be  good,  or 
whether  it  be  evil. — Ecclesiates,  xii,  12-14. 

Who  will  render  to  every  man  according  to  his  deeds :  To  them  who, 
by  patient  continuance  in  well  doing,  seek  for  glory  and  honor  and 
immortality,  eternal  life  :  But  unto  them  that  are  contentious,  and  do 
not  obey  the  truth,  but  obey  unrighteousness,  indignation  and  wrath, 
tribulation  and  anguish,  upon  every  soul  of  man  that  doeth  evil ;  of  the 
Jew  first,  and  also  of  the  Gentile.  But  glory,  honor  and  peace  to  every 
man  that  worketh  good  ;  to  the  Jew  first,  and  also  to  the  Gentile.  For 
there  is  no  respect  of  persons  with  God. — Romans,  n,  6-11. 

YOU  may  remember,  my  friends,  that,  as  introductory 
to  these  discourses,  one  was  given  upon  the  Uses  and 
Abuses  of  Doubt ;  and  now  that  the  series  has  been 
gone  through  with,  it  seems  proper  that  something  should  be 
said  in  the  nature  of  general  conclusions.  But,  first,  I  think 
it  not  out  of  place  to  allude  to  the  fact  of  the  unusually  large 
audiences  that  for  fourteen  long  weeks  have  given  their 
closest  attention  to  what  has  been  said — without  any  doubt, 
the  largest  audiences  that  have  regularly  assembled  in  any 
Methodist  chuch  in  the  entire  Northwest,  and  possibly,  with 


Closing  Thoughts. 


189 


one  exception,  the  largest  in  any  church.  I  am  the  more  free 
to  refer  to  this,  because  it  is  not  so  much  the  fact  that  I  have 
been  speaking  as  the  character  of  the  subjects  that  have  been 
discussed  that  has  brought  you  together;  and  I  am  free  to  refer 
to  it  again,  as  it  speaks  well  for  the  thoughtfulness  and  intel¬ 
ligence  of  this  community.  Let  it  no  longer  be  said  that 
people  are  tired  of  everything  that  is  not  sensational.  Let  it 
be  known  that  there  is  still,  especially  in  this  city,  a  deep  and 
untiring  interest  in  those  questions  requiring  the  closest 
thought  —  questions  that  are  farthest  removed  from  that 
which  is  sensational  —  questions  that  are  as  old  as  time  itself, 
and  that  have  been  gone  over  thousands  of  times  before  they 
came  into  your  hands  and  mine. 

I  may  remark,  again,  that  in  the  beginning  of  this  series  I 
had  no  thought  whatever  that  they  were  to  appear  in  print. 
When  the  publishers  of  the  Herald  requested  my  manuscript 
for  publication,  I  had  to  tell  them  I  hadn’t  any,  for  to  not  one 
of  these  discourses  have  I  ever  done  anything  in  the  way  of 
written  preparation  more  than  what  might  be  noted  on  half 
a  sheet  of  paper.  But  I  said  to  them,  as  Socrates  said  to  his 
friends  when  they  gathered  around  him  as  he  drank  the  fatal 
hemlock,  and  asked  him  about  his  preference  in  regard  to  the 
mode  of  his  burial — he  told  them,  if  they  could  “catch  him,” 
it  made  but  little  difference  about  the  rest.  So  I  said  to  these 
friends,  if  they  could  catch  these  discouses,  they  were  wel¬ 
come  to  them.  And  I  now,  in  behalf  of  the  audience,  thank 
them  for  their  courtesy,  and  for  their  enterprise  in  thus 
preserving  them  for  the  future.  It  cannot  be  expected  that 
there  should  be  that  closeness  of  reasoning,  that  finish  and 


190 


The  Origin  and  Destiny  of  Man. 


perfection  of  style,  that  thorough  working  ont  of  thought  on 
all  points,  in  an  extemporaneous  address  that  you  will  find 
when  discourses  are  printed  from  written  manuscript.  It  is  a 
fact  that,  of  all  the  sermons  which  are  given  in  Chicago 
papers,  nearly  every  one  is  printed  from  the  manuscript 
entirely ;  and  there  is  hardly  one  man  in  a  thousand,  or  in 
ten  thousand,  who  is  willing  to  have  his  words  reported  and 
printed  in  the  papers  just  as  he  speaks.  I  have  felt  it  not 
improper  to  allude  to  this,  for  it  is  one  thing  to  speak  to  the  ear, 
and  quite  another  thing  to  write  for  the  cool  and  critical  eye. 
I  could  wish  these  discourses  were  more  perfect,  but  I  have 
all  along  felt  that  the  work  was  not  wholly  mine,  but,  in  a 
measure,  His  who  has  called  me  into  this  field ;  and  my 
prayer  has  gone  up  more  than  once  that  God’s  blessing  might 
rest  upon  the  hundreds  who  have  read  them,  whom  I  have 
never  seen. 

It  seems  proper  now,  after  these  fourteen  weeks,  that  we 
turn  aside  and  look  for  a  moment  over  the  vast  range  that  we 
have  been  led  to  travel.  Beginning  with  what  we  call  time, 
and  going  back  in  the  search  for  the  origin  of  our  race,  we 
were  naturally  led  to  think  of  the  first  cause,  the  cause  that 
lay  back  of  this,  and  so  we  pushed  off  from  the  shores  of 
time,  and  found  ourselves  back  in  eternity,  and  then,  retrac¬ 
ing  our  ste£>s  to  the  point  where  wre  began,  we  attempted  to 
go  forward  with  the  questions  of  the  future.  We  soon  traveled 
out  again  beyond  the  bounds  of  time,  and  found  ourselves 
launched  upon  the  eternity  to  come.  Thus  we  have  gone 
both  ways  tin  we  stood  out  in  the  dim  and  distant  shadows. 
Searching  for  the  origin  of  things,  we  were  led  to  think  of 


Closing  Thoughts. 


191 


the  first  cause.  Then  we  found  ourselves  not  alone,  but  in 
the  midst  of  a  vast  creation,  in  the  midst  of  a  world  full  of 
beings  and  life,  in  the  midst  of  a  system  of  worlds,  and  this 
joined  to  other  systems,  making  the  vast  universe  itself. 
Then,  again,  coming  to  ourselves,  we  found  a  nature  endowed 
with  consciousness  ;  we  found  ourselves  not  only  possessing 
bodies  and  minds,  but  spirits  that  were  nearly  related  to  God. 
Then  we  found  ourselves  in  a  world  where  there  is  both  good 
and  evil.  Having  looked  at  this  we  were  brought  face  to  face 
with  the  question  of  the  divine  government  over  man,  the 
methods  of  promoting  good,  for  repressing  evil,  and  for  the 
formation  of  character.  Then  taking  up  the  questions  of 
destiny,  we  were  brought  to  look  at  the  change  we  call  death ; 
to  think  of  the  life  of  the  spirit  after  death  ;  to  try  to  fathom 
the  deep  waters  of  immortality;  to  think  of  the  spirit-life  as 
separated  from  the  bodily  organism,  and  then  as  having  a 
resurrection  body;  to  consider  the  question  of  our  responsi¬ 
bility  and  of  our  answering  to  God  in  the  great  judgment ; 
then  to  take  up  the  difficult  question  of  the  consequences  of 
evil,  the  future  suffering  of  the  ungood  ;  and  finally  to  con¬ 
sider  the  life  of  the  redeemed  in  heaven. 

Now,  before  passing  again  from  this  field,  we  want  to  stand 
aside  a  moment  and  look  at  the  magnitude  of  these  questions. 
How  great  they  are  !  How  easily,  how  almost  automatically, 
we  pronounce  the  words  that  seem  to  indicate  them,  and  yet 
it  is  only  when  we  come  to  look  at  them  and  turn  them  over 
in  thought  that  we  feel  and  grasp  even  the  shadow  of  their 
greatness.  Think  of  the  magnitude  of  the  question  of  God. 
How  shall  we  bound  this  question  ?  With  what  lines  shall 


192 


The  Origin  and  Destiny  of  Man 


we  fathom,  it — undoubtedly  the  greatest  question  that  ever 
engaged  human  thought — this  question  of  God  ?  Think, 
too,  of  the  greatness  of  the  question  of  the  universe.  How 
amazing  is  its  vast  extent,  how  wonderful  that  the  stars 
above  us  should  be  but  parts  of  it,  and  that  it  goes  out  to 
the  most  distant  regions  of  space.  How  great  a  question  is 
even  the  fact  of  human  existence  !  How  inexplicable  our  own 
being,  that  you  and  I  live,  that  we  hear  each  other’s  voice, 
and  see  each  other’s  face  !  How  great  a  question  is  that  of 
destinv  !  How  wonderful  the  thought  that  the  worlds  which 
are  about  us  continue  ;  that  we  continue  beyond  death  ;  how 
solemn  the  thought  that  we  have  entered  upon  a  being  that 
is  never  to  end  !  How  great  a  question  is  that  of  the  rewards 
to  the  good,  how  deep  and  solemn  the  question  of  the  suffer¬ 
ings  that  come  upon  those  who  do  evil. 

In  looking  at  the  vastness  of  these  questions,  I  have  felt 
more  than  once,  and  perhaps  you  have  had  the  same  feeling, 
how  little,  how  very  little,  do  we  know  concerning  them.  I 
was  conversing  about  a  year  ago  with  one  of  the  most  learned 

men  in  the  Northwest,  a  professor  of  one  of  our  colleges,  and 
I  asked  what  he  thought  about  these  questions,  and  the 
honest  reply  of  the  honest,  gray-headed  man  was  this  :  “As 
I  have  come  up  into  years,  and  have  had  time  to  think,  one 
thing  has  become  plain  to  me.  1  am  reaching  a  point  where 
I  can  draw  a  line  between  what  I  know'  and  w'liat  I  don’t 
knowr,  and  almost  everything  is  on  the  side  I  don’t  know.” 
So  it  must  ever  be  vuth  beings  so  limited  in  their  faculties. 
So  it  has  been  and  must  be  with  all  the  great  thinkers  of  the 
earth.  We  must  all  sooner  or  later  reach  the  conclusion  that 


Closing  Thoughts. 


193 


the  problem  is  too  great  for  us.  We  must  sooner  or  later 
reach  the  point  where  we  are  not  only  willing  but  glad  to 
confess  how  little,  how  very  little,  we  know  with  any  fullness. 
Beginning  with  the  simplest  things  of  life,  we  must  feel  that 
we  know  but  little  about  them.  We  know  these  flowers  upon 
the  desk  bloom  in  sweetness  and  beauty.  We  may  know 
their  names,  and  may  be  able  to  classify  them,  to  speak  of 
their  colors  and  know  their  peculiarities.  We  have  only 
learned  a  few  things  about  them.  What  they  are,  we  do  not 
know;  how  they  are,  we  do  not  know.  We  may  know  that  we 
are  here  ;  what  we  are,  and  how  we  are,  we  do  not  know.  The 
moment  we  begin  to  think  upon  ourselves,  we  are  in  a  world 
of  mystery  profound.  Whether  we  look  on  the  singing-bird, 
or  the  leaf  stirred  by  the  wind  ;  whether  we  look  at  the  ray 
of  light,  or  the  rainbow  in  the  heavens  ;  whether  we  look  at 
the  cloud  that  sweeps  across  the  sky,  or  at  the  rainstorm  that 
floods  the  valley;  whether  we  look  up  or  down,  within  or 
without,  at  the  cradle  or  the  grave,  if  we  look  with  intelli¬ 
gence  enough  to  perceive  what  is,  we  can  but  feel  how  little 
we  know. 

Then,  when  we  attempt  to  go  back  into  the  past,  we  are 
lost  in  the  dim  light  of  tradition.  Go  back  and  weigh  the 
balance  as  best  we  can,  the  past  is  shadowed  in  mystery. 
Attempt  to  go  out  into  the  vast  realm  of  creation,  into  the 
interstellar  depths  above  and  about  us,  and  we  are  lost  again. 
Attempt  to  think  of  God  :  how  deep  the  thought !  The  heart 
may  feel  its  meaning,  and  may  know  its  presence,  but  it  is 
not  given  to  man  by  searching  to  find  out  God.  I  would  not 

discourage  any  one  by  saying  how  little  we  know.  Bather 
13 


194 


The  Origin  and  Destiny  of  Man. 


would  I  try  to  lielp  you,  if  you  have  found  out  this  fact. 
Hather  would  I  have  you  begin  down  in  the  primers  of  truth. 
Rather  would  I  encourage  all  to  think  that  we  only  turn 
a  few  leaves  here,  and  that  the  book  of  thinking  and  learning 
will  have  other  leaves  to  turn  when  the  millions  of  vears  that 
await  us  in  the  future  have  become  a  part  of  the  ever-length¬ 
ening  past. 

I  want  to  stand  aside  from  the  field  we  have  been  going 
over,  not  only  to  reflect  upon  how  very  little  of  these  things 
we  know  with  fullness,  but  I  want  to  try  to  pick  out  from 
this  vast  world  of  the  known  and  the  unknown,  a  few  of  the 
things  that  we  may  account  as  pretty  well  settled  in  human 
thinking.  For  you  may  ask:  If  there  is  so  little  we  know, 
what  are  we  to  do  ?  Are  we  to  sit  down  and  feel  that  nothing 
is  certain  ?  Far  from  it.  There  is  a  difference  between 
knowing  certainly  and  knowing  fully.  I  hold  to  the  philoso¬ 
phy  of  realism  —  that  our  senses  do  not  deceive  us,  that 
consciousness  is  not  a  lie,  and  that  we  certainly  know.  Yet 
so  limited  are  our  powers  that  we  cannot  know  fully  and 
exhaustively.  The  fact  that  we  cannot  know  everything  is  no 
good  reason  for  saying  that  we  cannot  know  anything.  We 
are  like  those  who  may  know  but  one  language,  going  to  some 
monument  on  which  there  is  a  writing  in  English,  in  French, 
in  German,  in  Latin,  in  Greek,  in  Syriac.  They  might  find 
the  tomb,  but,  reading  only  English,  they  would  not  know 
what  the  other  languages  said.  It  is  like  our  knowing  a  field, 
a  garden,  and  the  roads  that  traverse  our  neighborhood  or 
county.  We  know  these  things  certainly,  but  there  is  always 
a  beyond  that  we  do  not  know.  We  know  only  a  paid  of  any- 


Closing  Thoughts. 


195 


thing.  Take  the  question  of  God.  I  beg  you  to  receive  and 
rest  upon  this  great  truth,  not  so  much  from  the  arguments 
that  give  it  plausibility,  but  rather  from  the  quick  and  certain 
intuitions  of  the  heart  that  come  out  and  perceive  God.  I 
would  not,  for  my  own  j)urpose,  give  one  penny  for  all  the 
arguments  #  that  have  been  offered,  from  the  days  of  Clarke 
and  Descartes  and  Butler  down  to  the  latest  utterances  of 
Mill,  in  proof  or  disproof  of  the  question  of  God.  They  are 
valuable ;  they  are  interesting  as  displays  of  mental  power, 
of  deep  thinking.  They  may  be  very  helpful  to  some  minds. 
To  me,  personally,  as  far  as  assuring  the  fact,  they  are  value¬ 
less.  I  perceive  God  from  the  spiritual  intuitions  of  my 
being.  I  walk  in  His  presence  and  companionship  by  the 
light  of  the  spirit  rather  than  by  the  conclusions  of  the 
intellect. 

Another  fact  we  may  regard  as  settled  is  the  existence  of 
material  things.  It  may  seem  simjde  to  place  emphasis  on  a 
statement  like  this,  but  it  is  in  the  stating  and  restating  that 
the  worth  of  such  a  fact  consists  —  the  fact  that  there  is  a 
material  existence  ;  the  fact  that  there  is  wood,  and  iron,  and 
stone,  and  water  ;  the  fact  that  this  great  system  of  worlds  is 
not  an  illusion  ;  when  realized,  it  is  a  great  fact.  Another  fact 
I  would  mention  as  settled  in  human  thought  is  the  fact  of 
law.  Not  only  is  there  a  Supreme  Being  and  a  material  exist¬ 
ence,  but  there  is  certainly  the  presence  of  what  we  call  law, 
also — the  presence  of  order,  of  purpose,  of  design,  so  that 
things  do  not  fall  out  by  chance  or  accident.  You  can,  if  you 
once  find  the  law  of  anything  depend  upon  the  everlasting 
trueness  of  that  law.  And  it  is  a  wonderful  fact,  if  it  dawns 


196 


The  Origin  and  Destiny  of  Man. 


upon  our  mind,  that  ourselves  and  the  universe  about  us  are 
the  subjects  of  law;  that  there  is  something  back  of  what 
occurs  to  determine  and  shape  it  ;  that  we  are  in  the  midst  of 
certainty,  not  of  uncertainty.  For  without  the  presence 
of  law,  we  could  not  calculate  ;  we  could  not  live  for  the 
future  ;  we  could  not  lay  plans,  saying,  to-day  I  will  begin, 
and  to-morrow  I  will  continue.  Law  gives  to  wood  its 
strength,  to  iron  its  strength,  to  stone  its  endurance,  and  the 
builder  knows  and  depends  upon  this  law  in  every  step  he 
takes.  There  is  also  another  fact — the  fact  of  moral  laws. 
There  is  such  a  thing  as  right,  such  a  thing  as  wrong.  There 
is  character  that  is  formed  along  the  line  of  good,  or  along 
the  line  of  evil.  Another  fact  accounted  settled  in  the  world 
of  thought  is  the  fact  of  a  future  state.  I  state  it  as  a  fact. 
Possibly,  to  some,  I  am  straining  a  point  when  I  do  this.  But 
it  does  seem  to  me,  that  man  may  stand  here  upon  these 
shores  and  calculate  with  certainty,  and  feel  it  as  a  truth,  that 
there  is  a  future  state  of  being — that  the  life  that  is  here  is 
carried  over  there.  And  as  we  stand  in  the  presence  of  this 
fact,  another  fact  comes  before  us,  that  there,  as  well  as 
here,  goodness  will  have  its  reward,  and  evil  its  suffering. 

Now  as  I  have  more  than  once  led  you  to  feel,  and  have  felt 
with  you  myself,  the  presence  of  the  uncertain,  and  as  we 
have  more  than  once  come  up  to  the  line  of  the  partially 
known  and  to  the  unknown,  I  want  to  state  to  you  that,  giving 
full  sweep  to  all  the  doubts  we  have  encountered,  admitting 
fully  the  little  that  we  know  and  making  full  account  of  the 
things  that  are  uncertain,  there  is  yet  enough  left  on  which  to 
anchor  ourselves  ;  enough  left  on  which  to  build  character ; 


Closing  Thoughts. 


197 


enough,  left  to  sustain  the  idea  of  right  and  the  blessed  teach¬ 
ings  of  religion.  I  want  to  say  this  because  many  sincere 
people  feel  that  if  we  reveal,  or  admit,  the  fact  of  doubt, 
everything  is  liable  to  fall  through.  If  we  know  so  little, 
they  say,  how  can  we  be  sure  that  we  know  anything  ?  But 
I  want  to  say  to  you,  my  friends,  give  the  doubt  its  full  bene¬ 
fit,  draw  the  line  between  the  known  and  the  unknown  and 
make  the  unknown  the  greater  part,  and  still  there  is  enough 
left. 

Take  this  first  question  on  which  we  began,  and  on  which 
we  have  been  talking  more  or  less  directly  in  every  one  of 
these  discourses  —  the  question  of  God.  Suppose  I  admit 
that  by  reason  I  cannot  find  out  God.  Suppose  I  admit  that 
I  cannot  even  conceive  in  my  mind  of  a  personal  God.  Sup¬ 
pose  I  admit  that  when  I  talk  to  you  of  infinity,  of  a  universe 
of  worlds  rolling  on  through  space,  I  am  utterly  unable  to 
think  of  a  personal  being  back  of  all  this  ;  that  I  cannot  com¬ 
pass  the  thought  of  God.  What  then  ?  Suppose  even — 
though  I  have  no  fear  of  it — that  we  should  be  driven  to  the 
point  of  admitting  that  there  is  no  jmrsonal  God.  Even  if  we 
should  be  forced  to  that  extreme,  everything  is  not  gone. 
Matthew  Arnold,  in  his  late  work  entitled  “God  and  the 
Bible,”  says  that  though  we  may  not  be  able  to  conceive  of  a 
personal  God,  we  must  admit  that  there  is  a  something  not 
of  ourselves  that  makes  for  righteousness.  Here  is  the  jjres- 
ence  of  the  world  and  the  universe  ;  the  fact  of  law,  the  fact 
that  goodness  is  rewarded  and  evil  punished.  Make  these 
facts  and  these  laws  God,  if  it  so  seems  to  you,  think  of  it  as 
you  will,  still  this  great  fact  is  before  the  mind,  that  there  is 


198 


The  Origin  and  Destiny  of  M<in. 


a  something  not  of  ourselves,  that  makes  for  righteousness. 
There  is  that  in  the  constitution  of  things  out  of  which  char¬ 
acter  may  be  formed.  There  is  that  which  assures  the  rewards 
of  virtue  and  the  penalties  of  vice.  I  call  this  something  a 
personal,  living  God.  Or,  suppose  we  admit  another  thing  in 
the  realm  of  doubt :  that  the  origin  of  our  race  is  buried  in 
inexplicable  darkness  ;  that  possibly  the  Darwinian  theory  is 
correct,  and  that  man  lias  come  up  from  the  worm  through 
countless  stages  of  development  to  his  present  state  of  being. 
Suppose  we  admit  this.  It  don’t  make  any  difference.  We 
•are  here.  Over  what  road  we  came,  we  mav  not  be  able  to 
say;  but  our  belief  or  unbelief  on  that  point  cannot  alter  the 
fact  of  our  presence  in  the  world.  Suppose  we  are  unable  to 
solve  the  question  of  the  origin  of  evil ;  suppose  this  theory 
be  so,  or  suppose  that  be  so.  There  is  no  theory  but  what 
will  encounter  its  difficulties.  The  fact  of  evil  in  the  world 
is  still  a  fact.  You  cannot  by  doubt  get  away  from  it.  Sup¬ 
pose  I  am  unable  to  explain  to  you  how  it  is  that  prayer  helps 
the  soul ;  how  it  is  that  virtue  is  rewarded  ;  how  it  is,  and 
why  it  is,  that  evil  is  punished.  These  great  facts  still 
remain.  Suppose  that  I  am  unable  to  outline  with  definite¬ 
ness  and  with  certainty  what  the  future  life  will  be,  what 
will  be  the  manner  of  the  resurrection  of  the  body,  what  will 
be  the  life  of  the  spirit,  what  will  be  the  heaven  or  hell  of  the 
future.  My  ignorance  or  inability  does  not  take  away  the 
great  facts.  The  point  I  want  to  make  clear  is  that,  giving 
doubt  everything  it  may  claim  on  these  questions,  there  is 
enough  left,  and  more  than  enough,  for  all  that  we  need  to 
stand  upon.  Take  this  question  of  the  future.  Often  have  I 


Closing  Thoughts. 


199 


left  the  bedside  of  the  dying,  feeling  the  very  breath  and 
presence  of  the  angels  as  they  came  in  triumph  to  welcome 
the  departing  soul,  and  the  next  moment,  as  I  stood  out  on 
the  great  earth,  possibly  on  a  cold  winter  night,  I  have  asked, 
where  has  that  spirit  gone  ?  "Where  in  this  expanse  of  worlds 
is  that  soul  that  but  now  was  here  ?  Suppose  I  feel  the  mys¬ 
tery,  as  I  doubtless  must,  still,  still,  my  faith  lives;  the  fact 
that  a  soul  has  left  our  shores  is  before  me,  and  because  I 
cannot  follow  its  strange  flight  I  need  not  turn  around  and  say 
that  it  has  ceased  to  be. 

I  want  you  to  come  to  this  feeling — the  sooner  the  better. 
There  is  a  measure  of  mystery,  of  uncertainty  and  doubt,  on 
these  questions,  and  there  are  hundreds  of  things  we  cannot 
understand  fully.  There  is  not  a  man  in  the  world  that 
knows  certainly  who  wrote  the  book  of  Genesis,  the  book  of 
Exodus,  of  Leviticus,  Numbers,  and  Deuteronomy.  But 
suppose  we  don’t  know.  The  books  are  here.  Nobody  knows, 
or  ever  will  know,  whether  we  have  in  the  New  Testament  the 
exact  words  that  Christ  uttered.  But  suppose  we  do  not 
know  these  things,  and  cannot  know  them.  We  can  take  the 
sacred  volume  and  see  the  truth  it  teaches  ;  we  know  the  light 
it  pours  on  dark  places  ;  we  feel  its  influence  on  character. 
We  can  use  the  Bible  for  soul  culture — find  in  it  life  and  help. 
Suppose  we  leave  our  lofty  places  and  come  down,  and  say 
we  are  beginners,  poor  children  of  the  dust,  but  yesterday  in 
the  cradle,  and  only  at  noon  our  mothers  let  go  of  our  hands. 
Suppose  we  see  with  our  weak,  longing  gaze  the  mystery, 
and  the  unknown  comes  down  to  our  very  faces.  Still  there 
is  left  the  little  that  we  do  know,  and  the  grand  fields  of  hope 


200 


Tice  Origin  and  Dusting  of  Man. 


to  which  the  spirit  aspires.  The  sooner  we  come  to  realize 
this,  the  better  for  us.  There  are  some  men  who  claim  to 
know  everything—  a  claim  which  is  the  very  best  evidence  that 
they  do  not  know  anything  as  they  ought  to  know  it.  Get  as 
much  knowledge  as  we  may  of  history  and  the  sciences,  ex¬ 
plore  as  we  may  the  questions  of  the  future,  still  we  must  feel 
how  very  little  we  know,  and  how  much  uncertainty  there  is. 
But  when  we  come  to  feel  and  acknowledge  this,  then  we  are 
getting  into  a  state  where  we  shall  not  feel  like  quarreling 
with  each  other,  to  the  place  where  we  will  try  to  do  the  best 
we  can  under  the  circumstances. 

This  brings  me  again  to  speak  of  what  may  seem  to  be  the 
course  of  wisdom.  With  persons  situated  in  this  life  as  we 
are,  learning  a  little,  with  much  that  seems  beyond  our  reach, 
what  is  the  part  of  wisdom  for  us  under  the  circumstances  ? 
Wisdom  suggests  that  we  go  on  as  we  have  been  going,  learn¬ 
ing  as  fast  as  we  can  and  as  much  as  we  can.  Read  the  good 
old  Bible  ;  make  it  a  daily  companion.  There  is  something 
in  it  so  true  to  life  and  human  experience  that  I  feel  it  must 
be  true.  Learn  what  history  we  can  ;  study  the  sciences  ; 
take  up  the  question  of  religion  as  best  we  may.  It  does  us 
good  to  try  to  learn,  to  struggle  with  doubt,  to  overcome  our 
ignorance.  Many  a  time  I  have  spent  the  hours  of  the  night 
till  3  o’clock  in  the  morning,  struggling  because  the  darkness 
-was  so  close  about  me,  because  of  the  little  I  knew.  I  seemed 
lost  like  a  speck  in  infinity.  But  there  is  a  great  good  in  this 
struggle  ;  there  is  a  purpose  of  God  in  it.  To-day  we  put  our 
feet  in  the  road  and  go  as  far  as  the  spring,  perhaps  to  the 
meadow  ;  to-morrow  we  will  go  out  into  the  field,  climb  over 


Closing  Thoughts.  201 

the  fence,  go  beyond  the  timber,  ascend  the  mountain — go 
on,  still  learning. 

Situated  as  we  are,  we  ought  to  have  charity  for  each  other’s 
opinions  ;  we  should  give  each  other  a  large  amount  of  per¬ 
sonal  liberty  in  matters  of  belief.  When  I  feel  that  I  know 
so  very  little,  when  there  are  so  few  things  I  can  lay  claim  to 
having  gone  thoroughly  around,  I  cannot  feel  like  holding  my 
neighbor  to  aceount  for  his  belief.  In  the  name  of  God ! 
when  the  infinite  depths  cannot  hold  the  name  of  that  God, 
am  I  to  quarrel  with  my  neighbor,  because,  when  the  Divine 
Being  passes  by,  he  gets  a  clearer  view  than  I  do  ?  Must  I 
denounce  him  because  he  sees  a  higher  truth  in  what  Christ 
says  than  I  have  been  able  to  see  ?  No  !  no  !  I  say,  brother, 
the  great  book  of  God  and  of  nature  is  open  ;  the  beautiful 
stars  are  shining ;  the  great  earth  is  spread  out  before  us.  Go 
forth  and  gather  such  fruit  as  you  can  ;  and  though  you  may 
not  see  just  as  I  see,  though  you  may  not  believe  as  I  believe, 
I  will  tell  you  what  I  believe,  and  listen  to  what  you  believe  ; 
and  if  we  cannot  see  alike,  we  will  not  fall  out  by  the  way 
over  that.  If  we  cannot  agree,  we  may  at  least  reverently  put 
aside  the  weapons  of  persecution  and  intolerance  in  the  pres¬ 
ence  of  the  great  truths  over  which  the  human  brain  has  been 
pondering  and  differing  for  centuries. 

Another  thing  seems  to  me  reasonable,  and  that  is  to  try  to 
get  that  truth  which  does  us  good,  the  truth  that  helps  us  out 
of  evil,  that  helps  to  form  character,  that  brings  purity  and 
holiness.  I  ask  you  to  bring  into  the  great  arena  of  religious 
thought  not  only  the  formulas  of  logic,  not  only  the  schools 
of  learning  and  the  acuteness  of  reason — I  ask  you  to  bring 


202 


The  Origin  and  Destiny  of  Man. 


to  this  question  the  longing  and  wants  of  the  heart.  Oar 
text  says :  “  Of  making  many  books  there  is  no  end,  and 
much  study  is  a  weariness  of  the  flesh.”  From  the  depths  of 
my  heart  do  I  sympathize  with  the  men  and  women  of  our 
land  who  are  bringing  only  the  intellect  to  this  work,  who  are 
puzzling  over  evolution,  and  the  authorship  of  the  Pentateuch, 
and  giving  their  time  and  talents  to  similar  questions,  around 
which  doubt  may  ever  linger,  and  all  the  time  their  souls  are 
not  at  rest.  Oh,  my  friends,  there  is  something  more  than 
an  intellectual  struggle  here.  There  is  something  that  comes 
right  to  your  door  and  is  in  every  one’s  thought.  It  is  a  ques¬ 
tion  that  you  can  very  easily  solve,  and  then  you  will  be  will¬ 
ing  to  lay  these  mental  doubts  at  rest.  It  is  the  question 
that  the  whole  duty  of  man  is  summed  up  in  this  :  “Fear 
God  and  keep  his  commandments” — that  is  the  great  truth  ; 
God  has  no  respect  of  persons,  but  every  man  shall  be  re¬ 
warded  according  to  his  deeds — that  is  the  great  promise. 
More  willing  than  is  father  or  mother  to  feed  the  hungry 
child  is  the  Infinite  God  to  extend  pardon  and  life  to  His  err¬ 
ing  children.  Let  us  but  feel  this,  and  these  other  questions 
may  be  this  way  or  that  way  ;  it  matters  not.  The  man  whose 
sight  had  been  restored  by  Christ’s  healing  touch  could  not 
answer  the  sophistries  of  those  who  questioned  him,  but  he 
could  say  :  “  One  thing  I  know,  that  wdiereas  once  I  was 
blind,  now  I  see.” 

I  am  not  talking  idle  words,  but  am  saying  these  things 
from  the  depths  of  a  conviction  that  has  been  wrought  out 
through  days  of  study  and  nights  of  prayer.  When  my  mind 
has  bent  and  broken  to  the  ground  under  the  weight  of 


Closing  Thoughts. 


203 


thought,  I  have  blessed  God  that  my  heart-life  was  luminous, 
that  I  had  peace  in  my  soul,  that  I  knew  the  sweetness  of  par¬ 
don,  that  I  knew  His  love.  I  have  blessed  God  that  there  is 
a  peace  that  passeth  understanding.  And  here  is  the  point  I 
want  you  to  come  to.  Fifty  years  from  this  I  would  not  give 
a  snap  for  your  opinion  about  hundreds  of  things  that  may 
seem  of  great  interest  now.  But  of  greater  value  than  worlds 
will  it  be  to  you  that  you  have  held  to  principle,  that  you  have 
held  fast  to  the  truth  that  saves  the  soul.  This  is  the  great 
question,  and  the  mistake  of  our  age  and  the  mistake  of  our 
churches  is  that  men  are  warring  and  fighting  over  things  of 
but  little  moment  ;  whereas  the  great  fact  of  importance  is 
character,  righteousness,  purity,  usefulness  in  the  world. 
Why,  for  us  to  hold  off  from  religion  and  from  gaining  this 
character,  because  there  is  a  mystery,  an  unknown  we  cannot 
fathom,  would  be  like  a  people  in  this  spring-time  refusing  to 
sow  grain  because  they  do  not  know  how  and  why  it  will 
ripen  ;  it  would  be  like  men  refusing  to  eat  because  they  do 
not  know  how  food  will  nourish  them.  Yet  men  have  grown 
grain  for  ages  without  knowing  how  it  ripens  in  the  stalk. 
Men  have  lived  by  eating  and  breathing  who  never  knew  a 
law  of  physiology.  And  there  are  millions  of  souls  about  the 
throne  of  God  who  have  gone  up  from  a  state  of  purity,  of 
conscious  trust  in  God,  but  all  innocent  of  the  learning  of  the 
schools.  Many  of  the  great  controversialists  of  the  age  have 
gone  up  to  heaven  from  opposing  sides.  There  will  be  found 
not  only  Abraham  and  Isaac  and  Jacob,  but  millions  of  their 
sons  and  daughters — not  only  Protestants,  but  millions  who 
have  gone  up  from  the  church  of  Rome. 


204 


The  Origin  and  Destiny  of  Man. 


It  is  character  that  we  want  to  gain — the  inward  truth  and 
purpose  of  life.  Then  it  is  wise  for  us  to  say,  we  will  take  up 
the  cause  of  Christ  and  righteousness  with  the  little  we  know  ; 
we  will  turn  a  page  now  and  another  page  to-morrow  ;  we 
will  do  right ;  we  will  go  a  little  way  to  day,  and  we  will  jour¬ 
ney  on  to-morrow.  Take  this  truth,  this  purity — fear  God 
and  keep  his  commandments — and  then,  as  you  go  forward, 
you  may  correct  many  errors.  I  have  many  things  in  my 
book  of  little  knowledge  to  revise  to-morrow  ;  and  when  I  get 
over  into  the  other  life,  many  things  on  which  I  have  prided 
myself  here  may  be  of  little  account  there.  But  in  this  I 
cannot  be  mistaken,  that  God  is  love,  and  that  He  loves  me. 
I  cannot  be  mistaken  in  this,  that  I  have  been  led  out  of  sin, 
that  I  love  the  right,  that  God  requires  that  I  do  the  best  I 
can.  Take  up  these  truths  when  I  am  gone,  and  live  them 
well,  and  may  we  together  study  them  over  in  the  long  to¬ 
morrow,  in  the  bright  forever. 


S'o 

p's  <  dCi 


Ori «/ w 

9 


r~  po'v\  \  i'-* 


